


Only Half the Rainbow

by Batsutousai



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-05 06:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsutousai/pseuds/Batsutousai
Summary: The thing no one ever tells you about being the hero, is that you always losesomethingwhen you're saving the day. And, some days, when you finally make it home, it turns out you've lost the only thing that ever mattered.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My original intention for this soulmate AU – I also have another one I'll get around to eventually – was, uh, way less angsty than this one. My muse (as muses tend to do) insisted this plot was a far better one. I may yet fire him. *eye roll*
> 
> This fic touches briefly on pre-canon, when Mick and Len met in juvie, before jumping to the end of both season 2 of _The Flash_ and season 1 of _Legends of Tomorrow_ , while ignoring the lead-ups to the next seasons. Basically, Len and Henry are both dead, and both Mick and Barry are grieving. They do not always handle this well. (Who am I kidding? They're both complete and utter messes and it'll be a miracle if they don't bring an end to their universe in the process. XD)  
> Because it's canon, yes, Barry has feelings for Iris, and that comes up a few times. However, ultimately, they don't have a relationship.
> 
> Mick and Barry are both in a shitty place when they meet up. They do a lot of blaming themselves (and Mick says, at one point, that Len's death is Barry's fault, to his face, just to hurt him), and violence occurs on at least one occasion between them. Please read responsibly.
> 
> A thousand thanks and much love to StillNotGinger10, who kindly agreed to play beta when I sprung this monster on her at the last minute.
> 
>  
> 
> You can also read this at [Dreamwidth](https://batsutousai.dreamwidth.org/385041.html) or [LiveJournal](https://batsutousai.livejournal.com/386768.html). A really shitty cover I made can be found on [tumblr](http://batshieroglyphics.tumblr.com/post/169736702344) and [deviantArt](https://batsutousai.deviantart.com/art/Only-Half-the-Rainbow-Fanfic-Cover-727073192).

The only reason Mick had saved the new kid, honestly, was because he hated Dickie after he'd reported Mick's stolen lighter, and he was the fucker who had the kid cornered. So he'd grabbed the back of Dickie's collar, dodged the shiv Dickie swung at his belly by the skin of his teeth, and punched out two of the fucker's teeth. 

Dickie and his little gang of assholes hadn't wasted much time in making themselves scarce, because only idiots thought they could take Mick in a fight. 

The kid, who had a busted lip and would probably be sporting one _hell_ of a shiner soon as it finished coloring, straightened and shot him a cute little glare. (Mick suspected he thought he looked scary, or something. He didn't, though. Was too pretty.) "Didn't need your help," the kid snapped. 

And then he pushed away from the wall, took a step, and crumpled with a gasp. 

Mick caught him without really thinking how it might turn out – best case, he got snarled at, worst case, he got a shiner to match the kid's – already opening his mouth for a smart line about the kid doing just fine on his own. Except the grey world around him twisted and changed, filling in with that mysterious 'color' that so many people seemed to think was the best thing in the world. 

The kid gasped out a curse, grabbing for Mick's arm and squeezing tight, his eyes – hues of color changing the grey into something slightly different – wide and disbelieving. 

"What?" Mick heard himself ask, a little belated. 

The kid's name – Mick's _soulmate_ , holy _fuck_ – was Lenny Snart. He was only in for a couple months, first offence. (Though not, Mick would discover soon enough, his first _crime_. Also not his fault he was caught, because he is a _damn good_ thief, given how Mick's got a new lighter within ten minutes of Lenny finding out he wants one.) Mick's gonna be in for longer, but he promised to find Lenny soon as he was back on the outside. And, so long as they were both on the inside, they watched each other's backs. (And Mick somehow ended up with a hoard of lighters, because Lenny took to pickpocketing any guards he saw with one; Mick had a sinking suspicion he was halfway in love with the clever little wretch by the time Lenny got out.) 

Mick did hunt Lenny down once he got out, and the first time he saw Lewis smack Lenny, he almost returned the favor. (Lenny stopped him, just barely in time. And it was only the quiet warning that anything Mick did to Lewis, Lenny or his baby sister would get in return, that kept Mick back the many, _many_ times after. Didn't stop him from keeping a record, though, because he fully planned to report the fucker soon as Lenny was old enough to take his sister. Didn't end up needing to, in the end, because another one of Lewis' shitty plans ended him in the slammer for a long while.) 

Mick and Lenny both, in their own time, found out that they couldn't actually see _all_ colors. But it took them almost three years before they admitted as much to each other. (Even then, it was only because Lenny needed someone who saw colors he couldn't see that it came up. Thankfully, they saw different colors – Lenny saw reds and oranges, while Mick saw blues and purples – so they hadn't needed to hunt down another criminal who saw colors.) 

"There aren't any reports of people only being able to see half the colors," Lenny told him that night, when the darkness of their bedroom made the conversation feel a little less forbidden. "I did a search at the library soon as I figured it out." 

Mick had done something similar, though his way had involved more asking around about old wives' tales about soulmates, because reading was hard for him, and he hated having to ask for help. (Hated having to explain it to Lenny, too, but Lenny hadn't mocked him about it. Had just taken to working that into his plans, same as he'd been doing with his own partial colorblindness, without anyone realizing he was doing it.) 

"Maybe there's someone else?" Mick suggested, because that seemed the most sensible explanation. 

Lenny scoffed. "Someone else? Like, what? Some pretty little girl between us?" 

Mick knew Lenny'd be making a disgusted face, because while Mick liked looking at girls sometimes, Lenny _didn't_. He could play the part for a con – Mick'd seen him do it a half a dozen times since he'd met back up with him on the outside – but he was very much only into guys. "Maybe it's another guy," he said. 

Lenny was quiet for a long minute, then he said, "We don't need anyone else." And that was that. 

(It didn't stop Mick from wondering, sometimes, what their third was like. Who they were. What sort of criminal record they had. What their gender was. If they looked more pretty, like Lenny, or rough, like Mick. If they'd be more inclined towards using their fists or their brain.) 

In the end, it didn't matter, because Lenny sacrificed himself to save all of time while he could still only see half the colors. And Mick, still struggling with _lifetimes_ of loneliness and abandonment, would burn an immortal dictator like he thought it would fill the hole in his chest, then find a pub and drink until the bartender kicked him out, because if fire didn't help, it was better to just _not be_.

-0-

The victory against Zoom was a hollow one, for Barry. Yes, his city – the whole _multiverse_ – was safe, but his dad was dead. And Iris might believe she'd finally got over Eddie's death enough to give Barry a shot, but it still felt like it was just her pity making her offer. And that... 

Barry wasn't strong enough for a relationship with _anyone_ , let alone his best friend and long-time crush. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the group sitting around the living room on the other side of the window, because he was about to change all of their lives. And then he turned and _ran_.

He headed for S.T.A.R. Labs first, because he'd need the suit for the sorts of speeds he was aiming for. Except, about six blocks from the building, he tripped over something and desperately circled his arms to keep from faceplanting as he stumbled back into normal speed. 

His right hand hit something, and someone called, "God _dammit_!"

"Shit, I'm _so_ sor–" Barry started as he managed to catch his balance and twisted to look at his unintentional victim. Except he _knew that face_.

More importantly, that face was in _color_.

Despite the long shadows of the night, the hue of not-grey skin was obvious, and Barry couldn't stop himself from staring in disbelief. He'd resigned himself, back in college, to never finding his soulmate, because most people had found their other half by the time they hit twenty, if they were going to meet them, and Barry'd had his heart set on Iris, anyway, even though he knew they weren't soulmates. (Not that you _had_ to marry your soulmate; Barry'd heard plenty of stories of people falling in love with and marrying someone else long before their soulmate came along. Or them only ever really being friends with their soulmate, so they both married someone else – or no one at all – and just stayed in each other's lives as friends.) 

Mick Rory met his eyes and the snarl that had been curling his lips – Barry _had_ hit him, after all – vanished as his mouth fell open. 

Barry couldn't really say what sort of response he'd been expecting – maybe an exclamation of surprise, or a shocked curse, or something – but it definitely wasn't for Rory to take a step back, throw back his head, and shout to the sky, " _Y'can't fuckin' do this t'me!_ "

"Uhm... Rory?" Barry tried, confused. 

"Fuck off, kid," Rory snapped at him, before adding, clearly to whatever inexplicable thing or being or whatever he'd just yelled at, "I ain't havin' nothin' t'do with some kid." 

"Hey! I'm not happy about this, either!" Barry snapped. 

And then he realized what he'd just said as Rory turned a flat stare on him. "I mean– Oh, _shit_. Like, you're a _criminal_."

Rory's face was flatly blank for a long moment, and then he let out a laugh that sounded a little bitter. "Oh, he's _laughin'_ , ain't he?" 

"He who? Snart?" Barry guessed, because he didn't actually know much about Rory. (Or Snart, if he was being honest.) Except that he hung around with Snart. 

"Yup," Rory said, expression twisted with some emotion that made Barry's stomach churn, though he couldn't quite tell what it was. 

"Wh-where is he?" Barry had to ask, glancing around. Because, shit, as soon as Snart found out Barry and Rory were soulmates, things were going to get _seriously_ complicated. 

"Dead," Rory said, the word falling like a bomb between them. 

Something in Barry's chest seized and he stumbled back a step, because _what_? Snart was–?

Given, he was a _criminal_ , and he'd seemed to get a kick out of shit like playing cat-and-mouse with Barry, so of _course_ he'd die eventually. But he'd been so _large_ , almost _indomitable_ , and Barry couldn't–

First his dad, and now _Snart_? It shouldn't have hurt – Snart was his _enemy_ – but it _did_. Different from watching the life fade from his dad's eyes, but still a blow that made something in his chest feel like it was cracking apart. 

"No," Barry whispered, shaking his head and blinking back tears. 

Rory's face did something complicated and he sort of half raised his hands, like he wanted to grab Barry's arms or something, then thought better of it. "Hey, kid. Are you–?"

"I'm s-s-sorry," Barry stuttered, ducking his head and rubbing angrily at his eyes. "I don't– I shouldn't even be– _Shit_!" He jerked his head up, staring at Rory as it occurred to him. "He was your f-friend. Are– Are you _okay_?"

( _God_. In what possible corner of the multiverse could Barry have expected to be checking that Mick Rory was _okay_? He was a criminal – an unapologetic pyromaniac and a thief – who had kidnapped Barry's friends and tried to kill him during their first 'meeting'. And Barry was...worried about him? 

In his defense, Rory was his soulmate? Apparently? Fate had a shitty sense of humor.) 

Rory just sort of stared at him for a long moment, disbelief obvious. And then, before Barry could open his mouth and say...something else (he wasn't certain what it would be), Rory's expression wiped blank and he said, "Soulmate." 

"...what?" Barry asked, confused. 

"Snart – Lenny – he was my–" His mouth twisted with a smile that sent bile climbing Barry's throat, and he let out a harsh, barking sort of laugh. "He was _our_ soulmate." 

Snart was–?

The world spun, faster and faster, until it fell completely away. 

-0-

Okay, honestly? Mick hadn't expected the kid to faint. 

Ha, 'kid'. He knew _exactly_ who he was; would have made a pretty shitty minion of the Time Pigs if he didn't know who the Flash was: Bartholomew Henry Allen, Central City CSI. Son of Nora and Doc Allen, foster son of Detective Joseph West, eventual husband of Iris West-Allen. 

Soulmate of Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, apparently; somehow, that hadn't made it into the official record. Go figure; no one would want to believe that their perfect little hero was the third mate to a couple of criminals. 

(Were they still criminals? Lenny's sacrifice had given everyone through time their free will back, and Mick had taken part in destroying Savage. Did that make them heroes? Or were they...what's it called. Anti-heroes? 

Was _he_ ; Len was dead.) 

Mick swallowed down the rush of grief and focused on the kid collapsed in the middle of the pavement, because figuring out what to do with the Flash was much easier than facing the absence of his other half. Third. What-the-fuck-ever. 

He was tempted to just leave the Flash. Probably would have, if he hadn't turned out to be Mick's soulmate. 

(Fuck Fate and her shitty fucking sense of humor, anyway; giving Mick and Lenny a third who's a fucking _superhero_. Not to mention waiting until Lenny – who would have fucking _loved this_ – was gone to spring it.) 

Mick huffed to himself and crouched down to pick up the kid, throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. As he stood, he debated where to go. He'd been _intending_ to get so fucking hammered he couldn't tell what was up or down, but he couldn't really do that with the kid over his shoulder, especially not while the kid was out cold. Him and Lenny had a couple safehouses within ten blocks, but Mick couldn't really bring himself to use any of them; didn't matter that they'd been abandoned for at least six months, they'd still remind him too much of Lenny. 

So he turned and started the trek back to the shitty motel he'd rented for a couple nights. 

Soon as he shoved his way into the room, he dropped the Flash on the bed, then left again for the 7-11 he'd seen the next block over. Bought himself a couple twelve packs and returned to his room to drink until either the kid woke or he passed out. 

-0-

It had been... _months_ since Barry didn't rush his way to consciousness. Not since before Zoom had broken his back, in the days when he'd still had hope that things would end easily and well. That, unlike with the Reverse-Flash, no one would die. 

It seemed like a _lifetime_ ago. 

So it was odd, but also kind of nice, that he slowly rose up through the fog of unconsciousness. Opening his eyes to an unfamiliar room, though, dispelled that relaxation, and Barry bolted upwards on the bed (?!?) he was lying on. 

" 'Bout time y'woke," someone slurred. 

Barry twisted, making a conscious effort to keep to a normal speed, because he couldn't quite place the voice. 

And then he saw Rory sat in a chair against the far wall, an array of empty beer cans spread around him, and something terrible swooped up through Barry's stomach, choking him. 

" _Shit_ ," is what came out of his mouth, even as he did some quick calculations about the cans, because that was immediate and simpler to tackle than whatever his own stomach was doing. He somehow doubted Rory was a lightweight – he certainly had the body mass to hold a fair amount of liquor – and most beer didn't have _that_ high an alcohol content – not that Barry had exact numbers, though he was starting to wish he did – but there was no sign of food, and that was a _lot_ of cans. Like, a scary number. 

"Y'should join me," Rory told him with a lopsided grin that made Barry's stomach roll, because he might not know Rory that well, but he was pretty sure that smile was about twenty kinds of wrong. "Think there's 'nother can 'round 'ere sum'ere." Rory snorts. " 'Pose it won't take _you_ long t'git more 'nyway, Flashy." 

...Rory knew he was the Flash? 

Well, that made things...both simpler and more complicated, really. For the moment, speeding around the room – hotel? motel? – and collecting all the cans faster than Rory could finish reaching for one of the few that weren't empty seemed like an excellent use of his powers. 

Rory stared a bit dumbly up at him for a moment once Barry stopped in front of him, the two unopened cans hidden in the closet, while the array of empty cans were lined up on the bathroom counter to be rinsed and tossed in either the bin or the recycling, depending on how environmentally conscientious this dump was. To be determined after–

"Think I'm gonna be sick," Rory decided. 

That, actually. 

Barry flashed him to the toilet and sat helplessly on the edge of the tub as Rory retched into the porcelain bowl. 

"Fuck," Rory said eventually, and blindly reached up to pull the handle and flush everything away. 

"That was dumb," Barry commented quietly. 

Rory let out a harsh snort, then spat into the swirling water before twisting and flashing Barry a mean little smile. "Fuck you, kid. Shoulda left me be." 

Barry twisted so he was sitting sideways on the narrow tub side, leaning back against the tile wall and pulling one leg up to curl around. "I'm done with watching people die this week," he admitted quietly. Because it mattered less that Rory was his soulmate, and more that Barry had watched his dad being murdered five days ago. Had led the time wraiths to snatch Zolomon and watched as they carried him away, his face decaying as they did, just that evening. And then to find out Snart was dead? (That he was somehow _also_ Barry's soulmate? Was that even...possible? To have two?) 

No. Barry wasn't going to just leave Rory to drown himself in alcohol. Criminal record or not. 

Rory barely breathed for a long moment, then he asked, "Who?" 

Barry couldn't tell if he really cared, or if he was just looking for someone else's grief to focus on (which, fair; cleaning up the room and focusing on Rory had helped Barry forget, for a moment). He didn't suppose it really mattered, so he said, "My dad. Zoom, he–" His throat threatened to close up and Barry snapped both his eyes and mouth shut. Forced himself to breathe for a too-long second, because he was _not_ going to cry. Not in front of Rory. 

"Doc Allen?" Rory asked. 

There was an edge of something in his voice that made Barry look up at him, made it sound like he'd _known_ Dad. And there was something about his expression – somewhere between shock and regret – that broke Barry's tenuous hold on his tears. "Yeah," he got out on a sob, dropping his face to hide it against his knee. Because he might not be able to stop the tears, but he could damn well hide them. 

" _Fuck_ ," Rory said, loud and emphatic, and Barry wasn't sure if the sound he made in response was more of a sob or a laugh. 

There followed a moment where neither of them spoke and Barry tried to muffle his crying, and then Rory said, "Fuck it, 'm drunk. Git over 'ere, kid." A hand tugged on Barry's arm, gentle enough to not upset his balance on the narrow tub side. 

Barry resisted for a beat – it was _Mick Rory_ – before giving in and slipping off the edge of the tub and letting Rory tug him close against his side. He was warm and sort of hard/soft in all the right ways, kind of like Dad had been, like he could have been a really excellent hugger, in another life. And that just made Barry sob harder, curling against Rory's side while muscled arms wrapped tight around him. 

Impossibly, for the first time in way too long, Barry felt _safe_.

-0-

Mick didn't really know when he'd nodded off against the bathroom wall, but he knew he'd be regretting it even before he tried to move. 

Moving, it turned out, was made especially difficult on account of the kid curled up against him, one hand wrapped tight in Mick's shirt over his heart, like he was afraid Mick would vanish or kick it while he slept. Given what he'd said, about his dad being gone, and Mick's valiant attempt at death by alcohol, the fear probably wasn't entirely unfounded. 

_Fuck_ , Doc Allen was gone. 

Mick had met the doc a couple of times – limited chances to avoid other prisoners on the inside, even when one's a fucking model prisoner who did good shit like helping with wounds from stupid fights in the yard or a shiv to the side during a riot – and he'd honestly liked him. Especially after that one time he somehow got his hands on whatever drug it was that gave you the runs, then got it into Lewis' food after Mick let it slip – mostly on accident – what he'd done to Lenny and Lisa. 

Well, shit, he guessed he knew exactly where the Flash got all of his do-gooder (sometimes by being nasty) tendencies from. 

How'd the doc die? Flash'd said something about Zoom. 

Mick frowned, thinking over what he'd learnt about the Flash's history under the Time Pigs. 

Zoom. Speedster from an alternate earth. Flash somehow got him stuck in the Speed Force, or something? He couldn't quite remember, but he got his, in the end; let it not be said that the Flash didn't take care of threats to Central City, eventually. So long as he was alive. (That didn't always hold true; Mick had been to alternate timelines where the Flash didn't make it. He supposed now he understood why a part of him had hated those timelines, even though no Flash should have been a _good_ thing, at least for the criminal part of him; he shouldn't have had an opinion at all, as Chronos.) 

So, Zoom had killed Doc Allen. In front of the kid, if his earlier comment had meant what Mick suspected it had. 

_Fuck_.

He huffed out a quiet, tired laugh, because it sounded like him and the kid had both lost a hell of a fucking lot in the past week. No wonder fucking Fate had finally tossed them together. And no wonder there were three of them; they were never meant to all be together. 

Grief choked him for a moment, the loss of his other half like a gaping hole in his chest that he could ignore for a bit, but he always remembered it eventually, and it got to hurt all over again. 

And then the kid shifted against his side, hand tightening on his shirt, and Mick could breathe past the loss again. 

"Rory?" the kid mumbled, sounding like he was still trying to wake up. 

"Yeah, kid." 

The kid cleared his throat and slowly pulled away, letting go of Mick's shirt to rub at his eyes. (Mick tried to convince himself he didn't miss the contact.) "It's Barry," he said, very obviously not looking at Mick's face. 

Mick considered that. He'd got so used to using nicknames for people – usually insulting, though too much of the Legends team had decided they liked them, morons – because that was an extra distance between them, meant they couldn't get close enough to really hurt him. But the kid, like Lenny, he was Mick's other half. Third. 

(Whatever.) 

There was no way to change how much he meant, because that hadn't been up to him. (Either of them, really.) But the kid was the _Flash_ , and no matter how many heroes Mick rubbed elbows with, he was still a criminal, at heart; they weren't friends. 

Mick rubbed at his chest, where he imagined he could feel the gaping wound where Lenny had once been, and admitted, at least to himself, that he wasn't ready to let someone in that close again, not so soon. Even if they were soulmates. 

"Red," he said. 

The kid's mouth twisted with a smile that ached in all the wrong ways, like he maybe understood all the reasons Mick had shied away from using his name. "Yeah, alright," he said. 

Mick grunted and braced a hand against the wall, then levered himself to his feet. "Too old fer this shit," he muttered. Not that he really knew how old he was any more; his time under the thumbs of the Time Pigs was a messy, messy fucked up sort of timeline, and thinking about it too hard made his head hurt. 

"What time is it?" the kid asked, even as he twisted and tugged a mobile out of the back pocket of his jeans. "Oh. Oh, _shit_."

Mick could make an educated guess, based on that response, and he didn't really think about it before he said, "Tell 'em yer takin' a day off; the city can survive a day without the Flash." 

The kid let out a rough, broken sort of snort. " _Sure_ it can. Not like the last time I was benched nothing went to shit." And then he flinched, full-bodied, and Mick had a feeling Zoom had been involved somehow. 

"Yer not benched, yer takin' a personal day." 

"The Flash doesn't get personal days," the kid replied, flat and unimpressed, just like the stare he turned on Mick once he'd got to his feet. 

Mick narrowed his eyes, because the kid's stubborn streak was as bad as Lenny's. 

He opened his mouth to set down an ultimatum, same as he'd have done for Lenny. But then he remembered he wasn't talking to Lenny, but his _other_ soulmate. The one he barely knew, who he had a _really_ shitty history with, one night spent sleeping in a crappy motel bathroom notwithstanding. He didn't really _know_ the kid, didn't have the right to tell him what to do or how to manage himself. Shouldn't even _care_ , probably; hadn't he _just_ decided he wasn't going to let the kid too close? 

But then he took another look at the kid, took in the heavy bruises under his eyes and the way his shoulders were already starting to slump, like the weight of the world was resting on them. He remembered the way he'd curled in on himself, muffling his sobs, like he thought he didn't have the right to cry. 

Mick remembered a hand clutching tight to the front of his shirt all night, desperate to keep him there, and how having the kid next to him had already helped Mick with the loss of Lenny, just a little. 

He straightened – he had about half an inch on the kid and he was _damn well_ gonna use it – met the flat stare with all the fire he could muster, and said, "Either ya come quiet, or I kidnap ya. 'N don't think I won't." 

The kid sort of blinked a couple of times, his mouth dropping open like he couldn't believe Mick had just threatened to kidnap him. "You can't just– I have _superspeed_!" he shouted at last, disbelief in every word. 

Mick nodded. "Yup. 'N I've thirty years keepin' up with sum'un twice as smart 'n jest as stubborn." 

"That's not–!" The kid choked out a little laugh that sounded a little crazed. "Oh my god, I'm not _Snart_!"

Mick couldn't stop the flinch, barely managed to bite back a hiss when the hole in his chest throbbed. "No," he made himself say, though every word tasted like bloody bile on his tongue, "yer not. He's dead." 

The kid was the one who flinched, then, his eyes squeezing shut. "Shit," he hissed through his teeth. " _Shit_. Rory, I–I'm sorry. That was–"

Mick swallowed down bile and made himself say, "Barry," because he had a feeling it would get the kid to shut up. It did, and Mick found himself staring at wide eyes that were a color he'd never been able to see before the kid had hit him in the street. He opened his mouth to speak, but he just...couldn't think of what to say. Couldn't find the courage to plead – he'd spent _lifetimes_ being alone; as much as he hadn't wanted to be around the rest of those do-gooders, he didn't want to be on his own, either – didn't have enough practice playing good to come up with an excuse that would keep him there. 

The kid stared at him for another moment, then he looked away, down to his mobile. Touched the screen a couple of times and brought it up to his ear. "Joe?" he said after a beat of quiet. "Yeah, I'm–" He swallowed, cleared his throat, and glanced up at and quickly away from Mick. "I need to clear my head. Just..." He let out a breath that sounded relieved. "Yeah," he whispered. "I don't– I'm not sure how long, no. But just... I'll have my cell. If you need me. If something– Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Bye." 

As the kid hit the end call button, Mick heard himself let out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. The kid shot him a surprised look, which twisted into a crooked smile. "So, breakfast?" he suggested. 

Mick didn't really feel hungry, but he suspected that was grief talking. And, well, the kid had given in to his demands he stay; Mick supposed he could stomach something light for breakfast. So he grunted and led the way out of the bathroom. 

There was a greasy little diner a couple of blocks over that did a reasonable approximation of breakfast food. The kid made a face at the selection, but still ended up eating enough for three people. Watching him eat it all was simultaneously fascinating and sickening, and Mick scrambled to find a topic to break the silence that had followed their leaving the room. 

"So," he finally settled on. "Made it sound like yer gettin' out of Central fer a bit." 

The kid's progress noticeably slowed, mouth twisting down slightly in a way that reminded Mick, achingly, of Lenny. "I don't know," he said finally. 

Mick considered that, then said, "Haven't been t'a beach in–" _god_ , it had been _lifetimes_ "–a long time." 

The kid shot him a quick, blink-and-miss-it shocked look, then shook his head, a wry, apologetic smile twisting his mouth. "Shit, sorry. That was...rude. Wow." 

Mick raised both eyebrows at him in a silent request for an explanation. 

The kid stared down at his food as he explained, "Almost asked about you being near water." 

Mick apparently startled them both with his harsh snort. "Yer as bad as Snart," he said, and the kid looked like he didn't quite know how to take that. " 'M not gonna melt if I get a bit wet, or whatever. 'N beaches 'r good fer bonfires." Not that Mick really felt the need to set a bonfire. Hadn't since the Time Pigs fucked around in his head. 

(Fucking _damn_ them.) 

"I...didn't think about that," the kid admitted, expression turning thoughtful. "Coast City's less than an hour out, if something happens. It's not...optimal, but..." 

Mick shook his head a little in disbelief at the idea of _halfway across the country_ being _less_ than an hour away – only the Flash could turn a holiday at the ocean into a _day trip_ – and said, "Coast City it is." 

The kid looked startled for a moment, then he huffed and slumped a bit in his booth. "Yeah, alright. I'll have to run home and get some stuff–"

"Jest get it in Coast. S'what I usually do." 

"I am _not_ wasting money on new clothing when I have plenty at home!" 

"Never said nothin' 'bout spendin' money," Mick pointed out, mostly just to see how the kid would react. 

Predictably, the kid's expression twisted with horror. "I'm not _stealing_ stuff! Oh my _god_!"

Mick didn't bothered trying to suppress his laughter, because the kid's reaction was pretty much everything he could have hoped for. 

The kid moaned and dropped his face into his hands. "I can't believe I just agreed to blow off work to hang out with a criminal." 

It felt... _good_ , laughing. It felt even better when the kid peeked up at him and Mick caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes, like he was enjoying the chance to joke around, too. 

Maybe, _just maybe_ , Fate had known exactly what she was doing. 

-0-

Rory did end up letting him run home to pack a bag, if only because the train west wouldn't leave until that night, and Barry grabbed enough for two days, just in case, and almost forgot his swim trunks, even though that had been at least half of his excuse for wanting to bring his own stuff. (Because the trunks had been a gift from Dad, when Barry ran out to visit him at one point and Dad dragged him out swimming. And it _hurt_ seeing them, seeing that _reminder_ , but he couldn't _not_ bring them.) 

He'd also taken the chance to run past the precinct and ensure there wouldn't be a problem with him leaving for a few days – "It's called _bereavement leave_ , Allen. If I see you in here again before at least a week has passed, I'm having you kicked out," Singh had snapped at him, almost before he could ask – and let his friends know he was going to be on the west coast. Which, well...he honestly hadn't expected them to all look quite so relieved at that. 

"It's been a tough year, Bare," Iris told him when he looked at her, askance. "Getting out of Central for a bit will be good for you." 

"Maybe Cisco and I will plan our own holiday," Caitlin added with a smile that trembled. 

"But a little closer to home," Cisco quickly added. "Some of us chance getting pulled over if we have to race back home." 

They'd all managed strained laughter at that, and Barry and Iris agreed that Caitlin, especially, should get out of the city for a week or so, given how she kept jumping at shadows and her own reflection. ( _God_ , Zolomon had done a serious number on all of them.) Iris even joked about getting Joe to take her and Wally on holiday somewhere, though both she and Barry knew Joe would never leave the city while the rest of Team Flash were away. Hell, getting him to take a holiday even _before_ the lightning had been akin to pulling teeth. 

He left them all with the promise to keep in touch by text and to bring back lots of souvenirs, then got himself a quick dinner before going to the train station. 

In trade for letting him stop past home and set his affairs in order, Rory made him take the train with him. "Yer on _holiday_ , Red," Rory had insisted before Barry left the crappy motel Rory'd been staying at. "That means ya gotta slow down, take it easy." 

"You'd know all about taking it easy, wouldn't you?" Barry had muttered, rolling his eyes. 

Rory's face had done something complicated that Barry couldn't quite read, before forcefully smoothing out. "Easy'sa only way ta take it," he'd said with a manic grin that looked forced, and Barry had returned his own forced smile before running off, because he hadn't really known how to respond to him. 

Barry had spent a little too much of his day running around wondering what had happened in the past however long it had been since the last time he'd seen Snart and Rory. Months. _Something_ , clearly, something that had ended with Snart dead. 

He still wasn't sure he had the courage to ask for details. 

So he didn't. Instead, he joked, "Are you sure I can't just meet you there? Trains aren't really my _speed_ ," when he met him at the train station. 

Rory closed his eyes, looking vaguely pained. "Yer puns're jest as shitty." 

Barry's stomach churned as he realized Rory was comparing him to Snart. Which...it did and it didn't hurt, but he wasn't entirely certain it hurt for the _right_ reasons; he shouldn't be regretting not having the chance to get to know a criminal like Snart better, to be comfortable enough to trade jokes instead of threats. (He'd thought, at Christmas, that they might be there, or close to it. But then Snart had left, had vanished from Central City entirely – the CCPD, at least, had enjoyed not having to go chasing after Snart and Rory on a bi-weekly basis – and died.) 

Honestly, he wasn't certain he should care that Rory was comparing him and Snart at _all_. Except, well, soulmates. (Was that why he'd found it so easy to trust Snart again and again, even after what he'd done to Cisco and Caitlin? Even after how he'd betrayed them at Ferris Air? Because they'd been soulmates?) 

"Danger of spending so much time with Cisco," Barry heard himself say from a distance. "He likes them. A little too much." 

Rory scoffed, then grabbed Barry's arm and dragged him along towards where their train was being called. 

Once they'd found seats, Rory asked, "Cisco's the geek with the long hair? 'N the dumb brother." 

Barry had never actually met Cisco's brother, but he'd heard enough about him to know he was, at best, a difficult person to get along with. "Yeah, that's him." 

Rory grunted and gave a brief nod. " 'N the lady doc?" 

"Caitlin. Snow." 

Rory gave another nod. 

Barry bit his lip, debating for a moment, then added, "Cisco's a metahuman. He goes by Vibe." Rory shot him a narrow look. "If you're trying to find something else to call him." 

Rory's mouth ticked up slightly at one corner. "Vibe," he repeated, sounding a little like he was tasting the alias. "Yeah, that'll do. 'N the doc–"

"Not something cold related," Barry requested, because he was fairly certain that the idea of Killer Frost still spooked her. (Honestly, after everything that had happened, _Barry_ wasn't really comfortable with Rory calling Caitlin something that would remind him of her doppelganger.) 

Rory's expression had gone suspiciously blank, and it took Barry a beat too long to remember who else had a cold name attached to them. 

"Shit," he whispered. 

"Lady Doc," Rory decided at last, rolling his shoulders in something that could be mistaken as a shrug. "Dunno any others, 'nyway." 

Barry swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, okay." 

Rory grunted and sat back in his seat, eyes sliding closed. "Wake me fer breakfast," he said. 

Barry sighed and settled in for a long trip, because he'd never slept well on trains. He'd grabbed a paper at the station, but it didn't take him long to read it, even forcing himself to go at a normal speed. Still, at some point while he'd been reading, Rory had leant sideways enough that his head was resting on Barry's shoulder, Rory's own shoulder pressing warmly against the side of Barry's arm. Which was...comfortable, inexplicably. 

Barry figured he owed Rory for not leaving him in the middle of the road after he'd fainted, not to mention whatever weirdness had occurred in the bathroom the night before, so he let him stay there, only shifting a little to ensure he could still turn pages without disturbing Rory. 

At some point, not too long after Barry finished his paper and was seriously considering starting on the sticky magazine some previous passenger had left in the seatback ahead of him, the elderly woman sitting across the aisle turned and whispered, "It's so refreshing to see you young people these days, unafraid to be public." 

"Be– I'm sorry, what?" Barry asked, confused. 

"You and your boyfriend, dear." 

"Wh– _what_?!" Barry hissed, just barely remembering to keep his voice down. Because _what?_ They were _so_ not boyfriends! "We're not– This isn't–!"

The woman smiled like she knew better, and she winked at him. "Oh, it's fine. I don't mind, dear." 

Barry forced himself to take a deep breath, squeezing the hand in his to help him settle himself. 

Wait. Hand in his? 

Barry glanced down and was a little disturbed to find that he'd joined hands with Rory at some point, their fingers laced together like some sort of clichéd 'perfect fit'; no wonder the woman thought they were–

"He's my soulmate," he heard himself say, couldn't quite bring himself to look up at the woman. "We're not– We don't really...know each other." Which was...so true. What did he even know about Rory, really? He liked fire – arsonist – had limited morals – criminal – and he'd been friends – soulmates – with Snart. He was badly burnt on his back and arms, according to Caitlin. Tended to get a little philosophical about fire, from what both Caitlin and Cisco had said. 

And he knew Barry was the Flash. Had Snart told him? From what Lisa had said, he hadn't expected him to have told Rory any more than he'd told his sister. (Although, soulmates; would Snart have been less likely to hide things from his other half? Other third? Whatever.) Or had Rory noticed Barry's speed before he'd accidentally hit him? Or was it something else that gave Barry away? His voice, maybe? It wasn't like Barry'd ever taken pains to hide how he sounded with Rory. 

He didn't know. There was just...too much he didn't know. And he was certain there were dozens of things Rory didn't know about _him_. Because there was only so much about him on the internet. (Er, hopefully.) 

"Oh," the woman said, sounding surprised. Then, after a moment, she reached across the aisle and grabbed Barry's wrist in a grip that felt far too tight for how old she looked. Barry turned to stare at her, wide-eyed and a little spooked. "You look after him, kid," she ordered, something sharply knowing in her pale grey eyes. "People have soulmates for a reason; take care of him, because he needs you just as much as you need him. Do you understand, _Barry_?"

The way she said his name was familiar in a way that jumped Barry's heart to his throat. " _Snart_?" he gasped, then flinched back from her hold on his wrist, which was suddenly _icy_.

" _Watch it_ ," Rory snapped behind him. 

Barry twisted, realized he'd flinched back a little too far and fast, straight into Rory, who was glaring at him as he rubbed his head. "Shit, shit, _sorry_. I didn't mean–" He swung his head back around, looking at the seat across the aisle, because the woman–

She was gone. 

Barry jumped to his feet, barely ducking in time to avoid cracking his head on the overhead, and spun a quick circle, trying to spot the woman. But she was nowhere in sight. 

" _Red_ ," Rory snarled, yanking on the back of Barry's shirt hard enough that falling back into his chair was the least embarrassing option to the sudden shift in his center of gravity. He looked angry when Barry turned to him, but that started to bleed away into something that might have been concern as he took in Barry's expression. "Ya look like ya seen a ghost." 

Barry lifted the wrist the woman had touched and flexed his fingers, wasn't certain if he'd imagined the freezing cold touch or not. Wasn't even certain that hadn't been some sort of dream, that he hadn't dozed off without anything to distract him. "I don't know," he whispered, curling his hand into a fist and squeezing tight. 

Rory was silent for a beat, then he said, "Okay." And then he reached a hand out across Barry and shoved him back against his chair. "Stay there," he ordered, then dropped his head back to Barry's shoulder and, so far as Barry could tell, fell back asleep. 

Barry held perfectly still, eyes darting back and forth across his field of vision, certain he was still too keyed up from whatever had just happened to relax any time soon. 

Except, somehow, every quiet breath tickling his clavicle eased the tension in Barry, until he found his head dropping to the side to lean against Rory's, his eyes falling shut. He tried to fight it, but eventually gave in to the draw of sleep, giving a silent plea that his dreams were forgettable, if not mundane. 

-0-

Something on the train had spooked the kid, but Mick couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it had been. If it had been Lenny twitching suspiciously in front of him every time someone walked past, he'd have assumed he'd stolen something or killed someone and was dreading getting caught before they could get off the train. But the kid in front of him was the _Flash_. He'd no sooner commit a crime, than Mick would–

...okay, there wasn't a lot Mick wouldn't do for the right reward. 

He probably could have asked, but that had never worked with Lenny, and he'd automatically discarded the idea. Then he'd stopped, reconsidered the possibility, and decided he didn't really know the kid well enough to decide how'd he'd react to being asked about whatever nightmare was setting him twitching. 

So, instead, he asked, "When was the last time ya went t' the beach?" Because that seemed like a good, innocuous question. Maybe help distract the kid. 

The kid started, blinking at Mick a little too rapidly to be normal. "Wha– Oh." He cleared his throat and rubbed at his hair. "Uhm, wow. Like, the ocean-beach, or a lake-beach?" 

"Either," Mick decided; the point was to distract the kid, not to get specific. 

The kid swallowed, his eyes starting to look a little watery, and Mick wondered if he'd maybe picked a bad topic. "Few months ago," the kid whispered, a world of pain in his voice. 

Mick opened his mouth, thinking to change the topic – to what, he wasn't certain – but the kid didn't give him the chance. 

"A bit before Christmas, after Zoom–" He shifted, sitting up a little straighter. "Well, I needed a couple days off, I guess, like now." His mouth curled with a small, strained little smile. "Dad, he was staying at this little cabin overlooking a lake. Beautiful view. He dragged me out swimming, even though the water was freezing." He let out a quiet little laugh that sounded like it hurt. "He caught a cold. Said it was worth it, getting to spend time together." He blinked and two tears rolled down his face. "Shit, sorry. I don't–"

"Red," Mick said, reaching out and catching the kid's hand before he could wipe at his face. He wasn't really used to dealing with tears – Lenny'd never once cried in front of Mick, and Lisa outgrew that phase not long after Mick'd first met her – but he'd lost his own family once, and while the head doc the state had tossed him at hadn't done him much good, he'd said some things that – though Mick couldn't for the life of him remember the exact wording – had stuck with him. Like a part of him had known he'd need that wisdom somewhere down the line. So he frowned a bit in thought, then gingerly said, "Ya don't– Look, yer grievin'. Hurtin'. That's allowed. Doc Allen, he was a good guy, wouldn't want ya bottlin' it all up. Ya gotta cry, ya cry. S'what cryin's for, gets out all the shit what's bottled up inside a'fore it turns t' poison. 'N 'nyone gets fresh with ya, I'll punch 'em out." 

The kid stared at him like he'd never seen Mick before, eyes wide and tears rolling silently down his cheeks. Which probably should have been insulting, but Mick had got good at hiding himself. It had been easy, with Lenny always being so _loud_ , drawing all the eyes. Harder, now he was gone. (Mick forced himself to breathe through the reminder of loss, focused on the hand in his and the teary face across from him to settle back in the present.) 

The kid swallowed and twisted his hand in Mick's, gripping him back instead of pulling away, like Mick had expected. "How'd you know my dad? I mean, prison, I guess?" 

Mick shrugged. "Coupla times I was in same time, yeah. Didn't know him personally, but everyone knew 'bout Doc Allen. Never started shit, 'n he was always good fer the personal questions, saw t' little shit ya didn't wanna take t' the clinic without judgin'." Mick snorted. "Maybe a little judgin'." 

The kid let out a quiet, pained little laugh. "Yeah. He... When I was little, I'd get into fights. Well, lose them, really," he admitted, mouth twisting with a wry little smile. "Mom, she'd tut and tell me off. But Dad, he'd tell me I'd done good, that I'd get them next time. He was–" He choked, ducking his head into his free hand and squeezing Mick's hand tight enough to ache, just a bit. "He was so _proud_ of who I'd become. And I got him– It's _my fault_ –"

"Zoom killed him," Mick said, keeping his voice flat and hard, and the kid flinched. "Ya didn't do nothin'." 

The kid's head snapped up, anger and self-condemnation making his eyes _burn_. "He ki– He did it because of _me_. Because–"

"He did it cuz he was a psychopath with an inferiority complex," Mick snapped back. He couldn't really say where the words had come from, but judging from the way the kid slumped, eyes falling closed, he hadn't been far off the mark. "That's on _him_ ," he added, because this was familiar territory; he'd talked Lenny back from enough ledges – usually figurative, thankfully – because of something Lewis had done. "Ya can't take the actions of fuckers like that on yer own self. Ain't yer job. Yer job'sa keep goin', be everythin' he wouldn'ta wanted." 

The kid stared at him for a long moment, before his expression eased into a faint, tired sort of smile. "So," he said quietly, "it's not just fire you get philosophical about." 

"S'not philosophy, jest _good sense_ ," Mick insisted, like he always used to do when Lenny or Lisa would comment on his habit of talking them down with what he'd always thought was just common sense. (According to Lenny, he was as good as the next Descartes. Whoever that was.) 

The kid laughed, his whole face lighting up. "Maybe. Doesn't make it sound any less wise." 

Mick huffed, but he had to give the kid that one, he supposed. And he'd stopped twitching, seemed perfectly happy to get back to his food without worrying about other passengers. 

The kid _also_ hadn't let go of Mick's hand. Weirdly, Mick wasn't feeling much like he needed to pull away, either, even though he'd never remembered being particularly tactile, even before his family burnt. Hell, him and Lenny had rarely touched at _all_ , outside of the bedroom, unless they were fighting each other. Hadn't _needed_ to, always knew the other one would be right there, would have their back, like other halves were supposed to do. 

Until they hadn't. Like Lenny leaving him after Mick'd got burnt so bad. Or when he'd abandoned him in that forest in the middle of nowhere. 

Until the moment he'd bashed Mick on the back of the head and died in his place. 

"Rory?" the kid called, his voice heavy with concern. "Are you–?"

" 'M _fine_ ," Mick snapped, trying to pull his hand away from the kid's, but he wouldn't let go, and Mick didn't have the energy to put up a proper fight. 

"Thinking about Snart?" the kid guessed in a gentle voice that grated. 

"Shaddap." 

"It's okay to cry," the kid insisted, watching Mick like he was waiting for him to implode or some shit. 

" 'M not gonna _cry_."

The kid reached across the table with the hand that wasn't holding on to Mick's and touched his cheek. Then he drew it back just enough to show Mick that his fingers were wet. "You're allowed to grieve," the kid said quietly, gently. Like he knew Mick would feel like he was throwing his own words back in his face if he said them with any more force. 

Mick turned to glare out the window next to them and tried to pretend he wasn't aware of the dampness on his face. Fucking Lenny, sacrificing himself for him. And fucking Barry Allen, for talking Lenny around to trying to be _good_. And for not telling Mick to go fuck himself when he'd bullied him into taking a holiday. 

The kid finished the last of his breakfast in the following silence, eventually holding out a paper napkin without a word, so Mick could wipe his face. 

Once they'd squared their tab – well, the kid had done, because he'd apparently decided that Mick bought the train tickets, so he'd buy the food; given how much he'd eaten, Mick wasn't inclined to argue – they returned to their seats and checked that they had all of their things, then settled in to wait out the next forty minutes until their stop. 

"Tell me," the kid said after no more than five minutes of silence, "that you've got better accommodations than a cockroach-infested motel, this time." 

"Didn't want better'n Central," Mick muttered, skirting around the truth. 

The kid huffed. "No cockroaches, Rory." 

It...probably should have been strange that the kid had just _assumed_ that they'd be bunking together. But, well, Mick had sort of assumed the same thing. He wanted to blame it on them being soulmates, but he suspected at least part of it was just not wanting to be alone. For both of them. 

Either way, Mick hadn't been much interested in cockroaches while on holiday in Coast City, either, and while he and Lenny had usually stayed in one of Lisa's places while they were there, Mick knew a couple of motels that weren't complete shit, but wouldn't ask too many questions about his credit line. He didn't really want to face Lisa yet, and she'd know soon as he cracked the door on one of her places, so while the kid was racing all over Central City, he'd rung around and got them a room at the motel closest to the beach. (It wouldn't even bankrupt him, not after Lenny had taken to setting up bank accounts for both of them any time they stopped in the past, which Mick hadn't found out until he'd discovered the paperwork in Lenny's things after they'd finally offed Savage. Though he hadn't actually had the courage to go to the bank and look into any of them, had just used the funds still in the accounts they'd had before getting on the Waverider.) 

"No cockroaches," he said, mostly to keep the kid from bitching any more. 

The kid managed to be quiet for another five minutes or so, then he started talking about his little friends. 

Mick sighed, but didn't try to shut him up; so long as he was talking, Mick wasn't left alone with his own thoughts. 

.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm the asshole who's waiting with baited breath for the responses to the end of this chapter.  
> Also, sorry in advance if you leave a review that sort of needs a response? (Not that I'm really expecting any to this chapter. XD) I've work tonight and tomorrow night – I'm heading to bed as soon as this is posted – so while I'll try to respond to people on the bus and/or during my lunch break, you all might get the next chapter before you get a reply. Be assured that I _am_ seeing your reviews, though.

The motel Rory had booked them at was almost familiar, in that Barry had stayed in many not-quite-sketchy places while chasing after the impossible, before the lightning. It did lack such additional guests as cockroaches and bed mites – yes, Barry had checked that with some equipment he might have bought years ago for his impossible-chasing trips – and was close enough to both one of the public-access beaches and a shopping district with plenty of places to eat and a reasonable grocery, that Barry couldn't really excuse using his speed to get around. 

"I guess we're on holiday," he muttered at the map on his mobile. 

Rory let out a snort that sounded way too amused. 

Barry didn't really think about the consequences, just reached over to the head of his bed, grabbed one of the pillows, and tossed it in Rory's general direction, same as he would have done with Iris. 

Rory let out a startled grunt. Then, before Barry could finish working his way through the rush of embarrassment, disbelief, and horror, he said, "Ya know this means _war_ , Red." And then he tossed Barry's pillow back at him, hitting him in the face. 

Even with his speed, Barry barely managed to dodge the swing of a pillow Rory followed the pillow to the face with, somehow managing to grab his own pillow and get up in the time it had taken for Barry's pillow to fall to his lap. "Holy shit!" he yelped, rolling out of the way. He'd abandoned his original weapon, but his roll had put him in range of grabbing his other pillow, and he had it up and shielding himself as Rory aimed at him again. 

Rory was, Barry quickly discovered, _fast_ , way faster than most non-speedsters he'd traded blows with, and he was a lot more mobile than Barry would have expected for someone in his forties to be, especially given what he knew of Rory's burns. Barry was fairly certain Rory was pulling his strength, though – he'd seen him break free of two cops with very little apparent effort, and there were notes in his police files about him lifting heavy objects over his head and tossing them at any pursuit – and he held back on his speed in return. 

Given their history, the pillow fight should have been less fun than it was. But Rory was wearing the widest, most honest grin Barry had ever seen on him, which shaved away _decades_ worth of wear. Barry, himself, eventually called surrender because he was laughing too hard to keep going. 

"I can't believe we did that," Barry admitted once he'd managed to catch his breath. 

Rory snorted from where he was attempting to beat his pillow back into its original shape. "S'what happens when ya throw pillows at people." 

Barry rolled his eyes and got up to try and fix his own pillow a bit. "Yeah, I'll remember that next time. _Jesus_ , you're brutal." 

Rory's raised eyebrows were utterly unimpressed. 

Barry ducked his head, though probably not fast enough to hide his grin. "You want to go check the shopping center? Maybe get some lunch?" 

"Do ya ever _not_ think 'bout food?" 

Barry made a face and had to debate with himself for a moment before he allowed himself to admit, "My metabolism's as fast as everything else. If I don't eat enough, I'll go hypoglycemic." Not really something he'd normally share with a criminal, but Rory _was_ his soulmate. That...had to count for something. Right? 

He chanced a glance up at Rory and found the man watching him with narrowed, intelligent eyes. "Is that a normal thin', or jest when yer speedin' 'round?" 

Barry blinked. "Uh, well, we caught it pretty early? I kept getting dizzy spells, then fainting when I ran anywhere. I haven't done it in a while, though, because I've been careful. Keeping a buffer of stored fat–" Rory let out a disbelieving snort, and Barry glanced down at his skinny frame. "Yeah, I know, doesn't look like it. Caitlin usually tests me every few days, helps me keep track of that. And I have emergency calorie bars, but they're kind of gross? Pizza's way better." 

Rory's gaze went distant. "Pizza," he murmured. "Haven't had that in–" His brow furrowed, something dark and lonely passing over his face for a brief moment, before he gave a violent shake and it was gone. "Pizza," he repeated, louder and more firmly. "Few blocks past the center there's a good place. Weird choices, but delicious." 

"Sounds like a plan," Barry agreed. In part because, now they were talking about it, he _really_ wanted pizza. But, too, that darkness had spooked him, and he was grateful for the distraction from thinking about it. 

They ended up poking around the shopping center a bit on the way to the pizza place, but didn't loiter with the promise of food. Which, they had some pretty weird options, yes, but was also as delicious as promised. Barry may or may not have finished off two whole pies on his own, then eaten about a third of Rory's, all of which he'd had to steal, and one slice of which had been covered in almost half the shaker of crushed red pepper in an attempt to protect it, which he maybe regretted a little. 

"Pepper always worked on Snart," Rory complained while Barry chugged water. 

"There was _no way_ you were going to eat that," Barry insisted. Because he could totally see covering a _whole_ pizza with that much red pepper being fine, but a single piece? 

Rory raised both eyebrows at him, dumped a healthy pile of the red pepper on his current slice, and bit into it without flinching. 

Barry shook his head in disbelief. "Yeah, you win this one. I will _never_ challenge you to a pepper-eating contest." 

Rory finished his slice – adding more red pepper, possibly just to make certain he'd driven his point home – before asking, "Should I be worried 'bout pepper-eatin' contests?" 

"Uh, no?" 

Rory nodded and set about covering his final slice in red pepper and eating it. 

(Barry was only a little disturbed. And maybe a little turned on, but no way he'd ever admit as much out loud.) 

The proprietor was laughing and shaking his head at them as he rung them up, and Barry was fairly certain they'd ended up with a hefty discount, but he didn't ask, just tipped really well. (The pizza _was_ delicious. And the service had been pretty good.) 

Rory had apparently taken what Barry'd said about his metabolism to heart, because their next stop was the grocery, where he stocked up on the sort of high-calorie snacks Barry often kept stocked at home and in both labs – constantly looking between Barry and the nutrition information on the bag of the container, and putting back anything Barry didn't care for or Rory deemed lacking in some way – as well as some more healthy options clearly meant for himself, and some beer and other supplies clearly meant for taking down to the beach. 

It was while they were changing to go down to the beach – Barry got the bathroom first by virtue of being faster, which Rory had very obviously rolled his eyes about – that Barry remembered that he maybe, possibly, had a thing for guys who were well muscled. (Not in the way Tony had been, where it was as much for show as anything else, but more the way Rory was, where they were clearly meant to be more functional than meant to impress. Which, well, it could just as easily have been a soulmate thing, he supposed, but there had been a couple of guys he'd known in college who'd worked construction to pay for classes, and he'd developed a crush on a couple of them. Never gone anywhere with it, because Barry hadn't been dumb enough to chance a beating, but it had happened.) 

Barry had about a minute to wonder how much more awkward things with Rory were going to get, before something else registered: "Didn't you have burn scars?" 

Rory stiffened and quickly grabbed the t-shirt he'd left on his bed when he'd gone to change and yanked it on. "Yeah," he said in a tone clearly meant to shut Barry up. 

Barry bit his tongue to keep his questions in, tried to convince himself it wasn't his business. Because it _wasn't_. (Or was it? How did this work for soulmates? He'd given up on ever finding his other half so long ago, he couldn't remember anything he'd once looked up about the most widely accepted etiquette. Not that he expected Rory would agree with most of it.) 

The vanished scars, Snart's death, the dark shadows that kept passing over Rory's face... Something had happened, something _bad_. Barry should ask, have a better idea what was going on with Rory, but he...he couldn't. Wasn't sure it would be allowed, and wasn't certain he had the energy to help Rory with his issues when Barry was still struggling with his own. 

_'Take care of him, because he needs you just as much as you need him.'_

Barry shuddered and hugged himself against the chill that went down his spine at the reminder of what that woman had told him. If she'd even been real. 

"Red?" Rory called, frowning over at him. 

Barry shook himself and straightened, pasting on his best, widest grin. "So, beach?" 

"Yeah, beach," Rory agreed, and motioned for Barry to lead the way out. 

He didn't, Barry couldn't help but notice as he made his escape, stop frowning. 

-0-

Mick might not melt or whatever in water, but he wasn't really one for frolicking in the waves, either, so he found them a spot in the sand while the kid whooped and ran out into the spray. It made him seem even younger than Mick knew he was, but it was also kind of charming, even though Mick usually found that sort of childish exuberance irritating. He couldn't really tell if that was more due to them being soulmates – he knew from long experience that actions that would've had him throttling anyone else, tended to be little more than minor annoyances from Lenny – or because he'd watched the kid cry his heart out twice in the past thirty-six hours, and watching him enjoy himself was about a thousand times more preferable. 

Usually, when Mick went to the beach, it was to look for easy marks (usually for Lenny, but sometimes Lenny would make him do the stealing, because he insisted Mick had to keep his skills fresh, as if he didn't manage just fine doing sleight of hand tricks with matches and lighters). Beaches were magnets for tourists, and tourists tended to be at least twice as dumb about personal safety as your average city-dweller. They'd do things like leave their wallet or purse in their bag on their towels, then leave it behind to keep track of children or just because they wanted to get a little wet before sunbathing. The assumption being, of course, that no one would _dare_ to steal their things at the beach. 

Idiots. 

He was tempted to do so now – had already picked out three likely victims – but he was out with the Flash, who was a fucking _superhero_ , not to mention a cop – cop-adjacent, technically, but given his night job, he might as well be a full cop – and he wasn't really looking to make things any more tense because he couldn't resist taking some things that weren't his. 

The kid came back after about ten minutes, his white t-shirt doing nothing to hide how ridiculously fit he was, despite his eating habits, and grinning widely as he flopped down onto his towel next to Mick's. "You're not going out into the water?" 

Mick turned a flat stare on him. "Do I _look_ like the sorta person inter'sted in takin' a swim?" 

The kid blinked, expression turning thoughtful. "Is that a trick question?" he asked after a moment. 

Mick sighed and twisted to pull a bottle of beer out of the cooler, both of which he'd grabbed at the grocery. 

"I mean, because you clearly do beaches. Unless you only really do beaches for bonfire purposes?" the kid continued, starting to sound a little worried. "Should we have waited–?"

" _Red_ ," Mick interrupted, because the kid was clearly not going to stop on his own. "I ain't goin' inta the water, but that ain't the only reason t' go t' the beach." 

The kid considered that for a moment with a faint, thoughtful frown, fingers playing along the bottom edge of his t-shirt. "I guess," he finally said, before shaking his head and looking over at the cooler. "Did you put anything other than beer in there?" 

"Ya got issue with beer?" Mick demanded, even as he leant over and pulled out a water for the kid. Because, yeah, he'd noticed how utterly uninterested the kid had looked in the beer aisle. 

The kid shrugged and took the water. "Thanks. It's not that I have a problem with it, or anything, though I'd like to not repeat two nights ago, if possible?" 

Mick grunted and took a long drink, because he wasn't quite stupid enough to make any promises. Not that _he_ much wanted to be bent over the toilet seat again, spitting out a bellyful of drink. Just, he knew himself well enough to know he'd have days when sitting at a bar seemed like the only way to get through it. 

Which, about that... He reached up and rubbed at the empty ache of his chest. 

"It's got no effect," the kid said in a rush, not meeting Mick's gaze when he looked over. He was watching the hand Mick'd just used to rub his chest, though, and he silently cursed that tell. "The alcohol, I mean. Goes right through me." 

"Well, _shit_ ," Mick said with feeling, because that sounded like the shittiest possible downside to having superpowers he'd ever heard. Especially when you've just gone and lost someone important. 

"Yeah," the kid said quietly, his shoulders rounding inward. "Caitlin made some sort of concoction to give me a buzz, once. Said it was something like five hundred proof." 

Mick whistled, uncertain if he was more impressed or horrified; speaking of making a bid for alcohol poisoning. 

The kid's mouth twisted with what Mick suspected was meant to be a smile, but looked more like a grimace, to him. "Yeah, but it only lasted, like, a minute." 

Well, that really _was_ shitty. And it sounded like there wasn't a whole hell of a lot that could be done for it. "Guess I'll jest have ta drink for ya." 

" _No_ ," the kid snapped, turning a disapproving glare on him. "I am _not_ breaking you out of custody when the local police realize who got admitted to the hospital with alcohol poisoning!" 

Mick snorts. "I ain't goin' ta no hospitals." 

"If you get that shit-faced, I'm not giving you a choice." 

Lenny had threatened something similar, once, but they'd both known there was no way he'd have been able to get Mick to a hospital against his will, no matter how shitty his reflexes had got. The kid, though... Mick suspected he could get him to hospital fast enough he wouldn't have time to fight back. And, unlike Lenny, he wouldn't be chancing an arrest in doing so. And the kid was just enough of a goodie two-shoes to think he was _helping_ by dumping Mick in an emergency room. 

Mick grunted and knocked back the last of his beer, if only to appear difficult. 

The kid sighed and shook his head. 

Mick paused in the act of setting the empty bottle aside as he recalled the rest of what the kid had said. "Ya can break me outta custody?" 

"What, _seriously_?" the kid complained. "I'm not going to spend the next couple of days breaking you out of police custody for the sheer fun of it." 

"But yer sayin' ya _can_ ," Mick pressed, because that was...interesting. Potentially useful information. (Not that he was intending to get tossed in any prisons any time soon.) 

The kid sighed and turned a tired look on him. "Yes. I can vibrate fast enough to move through solid objects." And then he reached down and pushed one buzzing hand through his towel. 

Mick's stomach did a weird, unfamiliar little flip, and he swallowed. "Handy," he heard himself say. 

And then the kid raised both eyebrows at him and he realized what he'd said. "Don't say it," he ordered. 

The kid wiggled his fingers at him, grinning so much wider than Lenny would have done if he'd caught Mick making an unintentional pun, but the delighted light in his pale eyes was exactly the same. Mick wasn't certain if he wanted to groan or cry, so he busied himself with pulling out a water and taking a long drink of that, instead. 

"So," the kid said after a moment, apparently deciding to be kind and change the subject, "if you're not going into the water, and you're not sunbathing–"

"Says who?" Mick demanded, even though, yeah, he'd never been much interested in sunbathing. People tended to fuss about him taking his shirt off because of all his scars, even before the burns. (Not that he had any of them left; apparently, his burns had been hampering his mobility, so the fucking Time Pigs'd decided to get rid of them. And since they were already taking care of one mass of scars, might as well take care of the lot of them, right? Fuckers.) 

The kid just turned a flat, unimpressed stare on him. "Rory," he said, "you are the single most overdressed sunbather I've ever seen." 

...okay. Kid had a point. 

"I people-watch," he said, mostly because he didn't really want to know what other beach activities the kid would come up with. Beach volleyball and building sand castles, probably. (Which, well, he'd got dragged into some pretty excellent beach volleyball games by Lenny, over the years, but those had all been with other criminals and involved a lot of violent threats and cheating. Which he somehow suspected weren't things the Flash would be good with.) 

"People-wa–?" the kid started, before snapping his mouth shut and casting an intelligent eye around the nearby beachgoers. He let out a sharp laugh and shook his head, not looking at Mick. "Oh my god, of course you do. Wow." He got up in a rush, while Mick was still trying to figure out how to respond to that. "I'm going back to the water," he said drily. "If I catch you in the act, you have to put it back." 

And then he was walking back down to the surf, leaving Mick gaping after him, because–

Holy shit. Central City's perfect little superhero just gave him permission to steal. No way Mick was going to stay on his towel, after that. 

-0-

Barry probably shouldn't have been as willing to let Rory steal as he was. But, well, despite popular opinion and the police generally being on his side, he _was_ a vigilante, illegally meting out justice against wrong-doers. He'd trapped people in illegal prisons, stood back and let Oliver torture people for information (in his defense, Oliver hadn't given him much of a choice), and damned an entire other world to the unforgiving reign of a psychopath. And he didn't always keep his hands clean while fighting metahumans, had been forced to kill a few of them because there'd been no other way to stop them. Which included Zoom, and probably would have included the Reverse-Flash, if Eddie hadn't shot himself first. 

It probably shouldn't have chaffed, the way the city and even his friends all seemed to see nothing but the best in him, but it did, sometimes. It was something he did his best to ignore, but the idea of his _soulmate_ (who happened to be a career criminal; both of them, evidently) thinking he was some sort of saint? 

Well, Barry wasn't certain he could bring himself to actually join Rory on his little thieving spree, but he could and _did_ ignore it for almost an hour, helping a couple of kids build an epic sand castle because their parents were too busy sunbathing or napping to realize their kids were struggling with lugging the buckets full of sand and water up to the spot where they'd been ordered to stay. 

When he finally made his way back to their towels, Rory was lying back with a relaxed sort of smirk that Barry was fairly certain he'd never seen on the man before. It wasn't a _bad_ look, was actually kind of attract–

And Barry was going to pretend he'd never had that thought, thanks. 

He'd finished the last of his water and was looking around for a bin, when Rory called, "Catch!" 

Barry had to use his speed to catch the wallet Rory'd thrown at him, and it was for the best that they were well away from Central City, because people in Coast City weren't watching for signs of the Flash. Probably weren't even thinking to watch for metahuman powers at all, despite them being around for more than long enough, now, that the entire world knew they were a thing. "This isn't yours," he couldn't help but say as he looked over the wallet he'd caught. 

Rory snorted. "Buy them kids ice cream 'r sum'thin'." 

Barry frowned and flicked open the wallet, suspicious. He wasn't actually surprised to find the ID sporting the photo of the kids' father, because the parents had seemed pretty inattentive. Though, still... "When did you grab this? I was sitting _right there_."

Rory raised both eyebrows at him. "Yer not that observant, Red." 

Barry opened his mouth to insist he _was_ , but then he stopped because, okay, actually, that was fair. He'd been purposefully avoiding keeping track of Rory, and he _had_ made a couple of trips down to the water to refill the bucket; if Rory'd already been standing nearby during one, he would have had plenty of time to snatch the wallet without Barry seeing him. 

He huffed and tugged a twenty out of the wallet, then tossed it back at Rory. 

"Yer not gonna return it?" Rory asked, sounding surprised. 

"I told you only if I caught you," Barry reminded him and turned towards the ice cream truck by one of the paths up to the road. 

"Red," Rory called after him, and it was only because of how serious he sounded, that Barry looked back towards him. Rory was watching him with a thoughtful frown. "Ya weren't tryin' t'watch, were ya?" 

Barry swallowed and held up the bill. "Do you want something?" he asked, uncertain how to answer that; he might be willing to let Rory commit crimes, but actually _admitting_ to it? Not so much. 

"Nah," Rory decided and lay back down on his towel. 

The kids were delighted about the ice cream, and if their parents noticed they were eating stuff given to them by a stranger, they didn't say anything. 

(Yeah, they totally deserved having their things stolen; Barry hoped Rory had got the mom's stuff, too.) 

He stayed with the kids until the dad woke up, looked at the time, and started insisting it was time to go. Barry made himself scarce before the parents realized things were missing, returning to his towel next to Rory just as the outcry started. "Should we make a run for it?" he asked Rory, who looked perfectly content to watch the mayhem with a wide smirk. 

"Not if ya dun wanna look guilty," Rory replied, rolling his eyes to the side to shoot Barry an unimpressed look. "If they come over 'n ask, ya look 'em in the eyes 'n tell 'em ya dun know nothin'. Ya were playin' with the kids the whole time." 

Barry groaned and dropped down to lie flat on his towel. "You realize I'm a terrible liar." 

"Gonna hav'ta fix that," Rory replied without any hint of apology or regret. 

(Not that Barry had expected any.) 

The family did _not_ end up coming over to question him, thankfully, and Barry let out a relieved breath when they left shortly after. 

"Ya ever stole 'nythin' afore, Red?" Rory asked once the family was long gone. 

Barry frowned and pushed himself up on his elbows so he could look over at where Rory was stretched out, his eyes closed. Had he ever stolen anything before? Sure. He'd done it a couple of times as a form of rebellion against Joe, when he was a teenager, and he'd walked out of a couple of convenience stores with a candy bar or pre-made sandwich he hadn't paid for while he was in college, because he'd wanted or needed it and been between paychecks. More recently, he'd sometimes speed-make himself food at Big Belly Burger or drinks at Jitters, and while he'd usually try to leave payment behind, if he didn't have cash on him, he'd have to leave without paying. 

"I've never stuck around to watch any fall-out," he said, instead of properly answering the question. 

Rory grunted. "Suppose yer fast enough, no one's gonna see ya fer long 'nough t' make note o' ya." 

"I suppose." 

Rory opened his eyes then and turned an amused smirk on Barry. "Lying no, avoidance yes." 

Barry blinked, confused. "What?" 

Rory huffed and shoved himself into a sitting position. "Ya said ya can't lie direct. Which, yeah, lotta people can't, 'specially them raised honest. But yer avoidin' good 'nough. Jest answer the question they ain't asked 'n yer good. So long as they dun push." 

"...are you seriously trying to teach me how to lie?" 

"Shouldn't hafta, not given ya should be good at hidin' yer night job," Rory replied drily. 

"I do fine!" 

"Uhuh." 

Barry huffed and started getting up. "Whatever. We should head back to the motel to change. Unless you want to wear your trunks and shirt to dinner." 

Rory snorted, but obediently joined Barry in collecting their things. "It's the beach in summer," he pointed out once they'd shaken out the towels as much as they could. "No one's gonna care s'long as I'm wearin' shoes 'n a shirt. But I ain't takin' the cooler along, so we might as well go back." 

Barry rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that Rory had a point about no one caring about whether or not they were wearing beach things. Still, his own clothing was especially sandy, after he'd got wet a couple of times, then sat in the sand for long periods, so he wouldn't mind getting changed. 

Well, if Rory didn't care, that meant there shouldn't be a line for the toilet. Not that Barry usually cared about waiting for lines. 

-0-

Mick could admit, at least to himself, that it was easier to get along with the Flash than he'd have expected. He wasn't certain how much of that was their souls just _aligning_ , or whatever shit, and how much was due to his having suffered a whole crew of wanna-be heroes. Which, well, given that crew had been the entire reason Lenny'd tossed him out – picking _them_ instead of his fucking _soulmate_ , just like he used to do for Lisa, and Mick _hated_ that that correlation had made it easier to forgive him – you'd think they'd have made it _harder_ to stand getting stuck with another hero. 

Except, really, next to the lot of them, the Flash was way less of a goody two-shoes. He didn't have Haircut's need to prove he's both good and smart, or the professor's condescending assumption that everyone else was dumber than him. He was more like the fire-kid, who'd got dragged along and was just making the best of it, or Blondie, who knew her own darkness and did her damnedest to fight against it. Maybe even a little bit of English, who'd been so very driven by his need to save his own family. Except the Flash had already lost his family, and he didn't have a handy time ship to undo it. 

(Or did he? He had foggy memories of speedsters being able to travel in time, but he couldn't remember if it was some sort of tech that had been created by a speedster for others like them, or something they could do on their own. He probably needed to clarify that with the kid at some point.) 

Really, he reminded Mick of Lenny as he'd been with that crew. Trying so hard to play by the rules, but unable to completely hide the fact that he was a villain deep in his soul. Except the Flash was almost the opposite: Trying so hard to break the rules, but unable to hide how utterly _good_ he was inside. 

Did that make Mick the Legends crew? 

"Great," he told the pile of burnables he'd been spending the last hour building up, because if he was at the beach, he was gonna have a bonfire. "Jest what I need, t' be the villain o' this holiday." 

"What was that?" the kid asked from behind him, clearly just back from another run to collect materials; Mick had set him the task both because he could go further to find materials faster, and because building the bonfire was soothing in a different way than watching it burn, and Mick had decided he needed both sorts after the past fuck knew how many years he'd had. 

"Nothin'," Mick snapped, irritated at being caught unawares while talking to himself. He grabbed a couple more sticks from the pile and turned his back on the kid. 

Kid was quiet for a couple breaths, then he offered, sounding a little uncertain, "Well, you _are_ a supervillain?" 

Mick couldn't quite hold back a laugh that tasted bitter, and the turned to face the kid with a mean smile. "Yer mixin' me with Snart. _He_ was the supervillain. 'M jest the hired help." 

The kid blinked a couple times, looking startled, before he straightened and shook his head. "No way. Heat Wave's just as nasty a character–"

"Heat Wave's 'n _afterthought_ ," Mick snarled, clinging to anger because then his chest didn't hurt as much. "Wouldn't even _exist_ without Cold. He pointed 'n said 'burn it', 'n I burnt it! I ain't cut out fer supervillainin', fuckin' _failed_ at bein' a hero, 'n I helped off them what turned me inta mercenary! All that's left is arson, 'n I can't even 'njoy that now!" 

The kid stared at him, eyes wide and hurt. "Sorry," he whispered, and was gone before Mick could blink. 

Mick stared after him for a long moment, still clinging to his rage and _glad_ the kid was gone. The Flash was the whole fucking reason Lenny was gone, after all. Turned him into a supervillain, talked him into playing hero, got him loving the idea of being good so much, he went and died for it. 

He stormed over to the cooler and yanked out a bottle of beer, chugged the whole thing, then dropped the empty bottle in the sand and pulled out another. He drank that one slower, carried it back to the wood pile and sipped it as he finished building the burnables up. He poured the last little bit on the wood closest him, then pulled his battered old lighter – a gift from Lenny over a decade ago, and one of the few physical reminders of him that Mick hadn't been able to leave behind – and used that to light it. 

The pyre went up beautifully, like a work of fucking art. Once upon a time, Mick would have been left staring at it, mouth hanging open and standing so close, his clothing would chance catching fire. Once upon a time, Lenny would have had to pull him away, and Mick would have immediately started bitching if he didn't get to watch the last embers die off. 

Mick left while it was still blazing, heading for the nearest place that served alcohol, because he hated how little the fire meant to him, now. 

-0-

For all that Rory had made it pretty clear that Barry was ruining his fire building and watching, and he'd honestly intended to stay away, he hadn't been able to resist the urge to go back and at least watch the fire from the distance; Barry might not enjoy fire the way Rory did, but he wanted to try and understand it, a little. (Also, he was maybe a little worried about him; he knew Rory had pyromania – it was in his police file – and Barry was a little afraid he'd try to give himself new burns, since his old ones seemed to have vanished.) 

When Barry got back to the beach, the bonfire was almost half-burnt, and Rory was nowhere in sight. 

That rolling, sick feeling was back in his stomach, the one that he kept suffering when Rory did or said something that wasn't _quite_ right. Like some part of him was trying to warn him that there was something wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

(Was it their soul bond? He thought he remembered something about soulmates knowing when their other half was in trouble, but that could have easily been something he'd read in one of Iris' trashy romance novels. Which Barry had only ever read on a bet. Honest to god.) 

When Barry approached the fire, he found three empty beer bottles strewn around the area, the cooler left open with one unopened beer left. 

"Shit," he whispered, because he already suspected Rory had an alcohol problem – he'd seen too many cops use alcohol as a crutch when times got rough to miss the signs – and he had a sinking suspicion that he'd gone off in search of something harder than the beer. 

Barry barely waited long enough to put out the last of the fire – surrounded by sand or no, he wasn't going to leave an unattended fire burning – then he turned and ran to check the local pubs, using his speed because _fuck_ secrecy, anyway; he wasn't going to lose his soulmate to alcohol poisoning, no matter their shitty history. 

Even with superspeed, it took him almost twenty minutes to find Rory, which was due almost entirely to Barry overlooking a ratty little hole-in-the-wall pub that he'd only spotted because someone had been walking out when Barry ran past for a third look of the area closest to the beach. 

Rory was sitting hunched in his barstool, shoulders rounded forward in a manner that was more exhausted than anything else. Still, the glare he threw at Barry as he slid into the stool next to him was angry enough to give him pause. Though that might just have been the suspicious shine of wet to his bloodshot eyes. "Get the fuck outta 'ere, Red," Rory snarled. 

Barry took a deep breath and finished settling himself in the stool next to Rory. "No," he said, quiet and firm. "I'll leave when you leave." 

Rory let out a rough-sounding laugh and flashed his teeth at Barry in what might have been a smile in another life. "Oh, _right_ ," he said, low and full of anger that somehow made Barry's chest hurt. "Central City's saintly little superhero–"

"I'm not–!" Barry started, before cutting himself off as he realized he was way too loud. 

"So perfect, so _good_ ," Rory continued like Barry hadn't tried to interrupt, "that 'e even tries to save his _villains_."

That made Barry frown, because, "I thought you weren't–"

" _Snart_ ," Rory snarled, and blinked once, twice, quick and rapid enough that Barry had a sinking feeling that he was fighting back tears. "Went 'n fuckin' talked 'im to _suicide_."

What? 

" 'M sure ev'rone's so _proud_ –"

"I didn't!" Barry snapped, fighting to ignore the bile climbing his throat, because he would _never_ –

"Oh, but ya _did_ ," Rory said, grinning wide and angry and a little unhinged. " _Yer_ the one what killed 'im. 'S _yer fault_. Such a _good_ –"

"Shut _up_!" Barry shouted, and swung a slightly wild punch at Rory's face. 

His fist connected with the edge of Rory's deranged smile. But it barely moved him, and Barry couldn't say how much of that was due to him lacking the balance to put sufficient force behind the punch, and how much was due to Rory spending literal _decades_ as Snart's muscle. 

"Lemme teach ya how t' throw a punch, kid," Rory said, a gleam in his eyes that made the most base part of Barry's hind brain run screaming. 

Barry managed to dodge the first swing by half falling off his bar stool, and the second only because Rory threw it while sliding off his own stool. He tried to cut and run before Rory could throw a third – soulmates aside, it was clear he wasn't welcome – but something – the glass that had been sitting in front of Rory, Barry assumed, based on the shattering of glass when it fell to the floor – hit him in the back of the head hard enough to make his eyes water, and he stumbled. 

"Hey! That's _enough_!" someone shouted, right before a fist connected with Barry's shoulder, knocking him around hard enough he ended up perpendicular to Rory. 

As Rory moved to throw another punch, everything slowed around Barry, his speed kicking in and giving him plenty of time to think and react. He started to move away, but then he caught sight of the shine of tears on Rory's cheeks, just like on the train. And, just like on the train, his eyes were full of more grief – of loneliness and self-hatred; Barry was familiar enough with both, after this year, to recognize them in others – than the anger Barry had expected. Which made him pause, taking too long to decide how to react, because Rory was hurting just as much as him, was just lashing out at him because...what? Barry wouldn't let him drink himself into oblivion? 

(Barry could...kind of understand that anger; his own self-destructive behavior tended towards refusing to sleep and taking down criminals until he couldn't stand up any more, which few people would be inclined to stop him from.) 

Rory's punch connected with Barry's cheek, doing a lot more to move him than his own punch had done to Rory. But Barry's aborted movement meant Rory ended up overextending, and he stumbled a step forward, chest crashing into Barry's shoulder. 

If a couple of hands hadn't yanked Rory back, while someone steadied Barry, they probably would have ended up in a heap on the floor. 

"Hey, you okay?" the guy who had steadied Barry asked, even as Rory turned on the two burly guys who had pulled him back. 

Barry's cheek and jaw hurt where Rory had connected, and the back of his head and his shoulder weren't much better, but it would heal quickly, and Barry was getting good at ignoring his pains. (He'd also suffered enough broken bones, over the past two years, to know Rory hadn't managed to break anything, so he wouldn't have to re-break and properly set anything later if he ignored it for a bit.) 

Rory, though, looked like he was about to get the beating he'd just tried to aim at Barry, and Barry was thinking clearly enough, now, to know he needed to stop things from getting any worse. So he pulled away from the guy who had helped him and started towards where a third guy had joined the other two trying to hold Rory still. "Ro–" No. " _Mi_ ck," Barry called. 

Rory fell still, and the gaze he turned on Barry was _agonized_.

Shit, he'd put the same emphasis on his name as he'd heard Snart do the couple of times he'd been trying to get Rory's attention during a fight. 

Well, nothing for it, so he took another step forward, close enough to touch, and quietly offered, "I'm sorry," because he'd thrown the first punch. 

Rory very obviously turned his head away, probably would have started walking away if he wasn't being held in place by strangers. "Shoulda jest left me, Red. Told ya." 

"Not happening," Barry said, and meant it with all his heart; his imagination or not, that woman had been right: Rory needed him to be there, stopping him from drinking himself to death, or starting a fight he wasn't going to win. Same as Barry had needed someone to get him out of Central, make him slow down before he fucked over _everyone's_ lives. They'd been stuck together for a _reason_ , dammit. 

(Had to have been, or the world would have given him Iris, instead, and Eddie never would have got involved and shot himself to save Barry. Then there wouldn't have been a singularity, and Ronnie wouldn't have died closing it, and Zoom never would have found their universe.) 

And then – maybe to keep his thoughts from falling deeper down the dark hole they were aiming for, maybe because it was just what he _did_ when the people in his life were so obviously hurting – Barry took another step forward and ducked down slightly so he could hug Rory without getting in the way of the men who had pulled him back. "I'm sorry," he said again, because it felt like the sort of thing he should say. 

Rory sagged, and the guys must have let him go, because he hugged Barry back, after a long few seconds. "Little idiot," Rory muttered, and Barry thought he could hear the evidence of his tears in his voice. "Stop 'pologizin' 'fore I hafta punch ya'gain." 

Barry huffed, because that made _zero_ sense – unless the idea was that Barry wouldn't be able to apologize again until after Rory had? – but he didn't push it, because he was pretty sure they'd done enough fighting for the night. So, instead, he said, "I think you've had enough to drink tonight, so let's go back to the motel." 

"Knew yeh'd say that," Rory muttered, tugging out of the hug and moving to return to the bar. 

"Mick," Barry said, unimpressed, and grabbed his arm to stop him. 

"Red," Rory returned in the same tone. "Ya want me leavin' without settlin' my tab?" 

Well, when Rory put it that way... Barry sighed and let him go. 

"You sure you're okay with him, kid?" one of the burly guys who had grabbed Rory asked once he'd left them to settle things with the bartender. 

"We can take him out back and teach him not to throw punches at you any more," the other burly guy added. 

Barry blinked, thrown. He guessed he should have been grateful that they were willing to stick up for him, but he was more annoyed that they thought he needed _protection_. Although, given appearances, and the fact that Barry's first punch hadn't done much to Rory, he supposed it made sense. 

_Still_.

"Not gonna punch 'im again," Rory muttered as he returned. When the burly guys turned skeptical looks that looked dangerous, somehow, on him, Rory grunted, clearly unimpressed by them, then said, "Red'll eventually stop playin' nice 'n pullin' his punches." 

Barry actually might throw a proper punch at Rory, one with some speed behind it so it _had_ to hurt, if he hit him while they weren't in a public place. Which, well, Barry wasn't certain how he felt about that. Because Rory was his soulmate and a normal human, not a meta, but he was also a criminal, and Barry was a member of the CCPD and a superhero; where was the line supposed to be? And how many times would one of them hurt the other before they found it? 

Rather than thinking too hard on that, or waiting to see how the burly guys respond to the certainty that Barry – who no one in their right mind would _ever_ think could take Rory in a fist fight – would be strong enough to keep Rory from resorting to violence again, Barry grabbed Rory's arm and half-dragged him from the pub. 

The trip back to the motel was made in silence. And while Rory wasn't stumbling every three steps, like Barry would have expected, there was something very focused about his movements, like he was only walking on his own through sheer force of will. 

Once in their room, Barry grabbed two granola bars and shoved them at Rory, because they were hardly the most filling thing, but they would at least be _something_ in his stomach. And they were the easiest thing to access. 

Rory's expression when he looked down at the food suggested he wasn't going to take them, but when he looked up at Barry – mouth opening to, very likely, tell him to shove them up his ass, or something equally pleasant – his gaze sort of slid to one side slightly and he stiffened, then snatched the granola bars and turned away as he ripped one open. 

Barry frowned and turned to look behind him, trying to figure out what Rory had seen. But there was nothing behind him except the peeling wallpaper. 

When he turned back to ask what was wrong _now_ , he happened to spot himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink: His cheek had turned a spectacular shade of yellow-ish green where Rory had punched him. Barry expected it would heal completely within the next ten minutes or so – that was about right for his bruises – but it was still _there_. And pretty obvious. 

He waited until Rory had finished the first granola bar and was opening the second, before asking, "Is this going to be a thing? Me dragging you out of the bottom of a bottle?" 

Rory took a large bite of his granola bar and didn't respond. 

"Mick." His first name had worked pretty well before. 

Rory's shoulders slumped slightly and he sighed. "Probably," he said, and the word sounded exhausted. 

"Okay," Barry said, even though it wasn't. Still, at least he knew it would be a recurring problem, and that meant he'd know to keep an eye out. 

"S'not," Rory muttered, shoving the last bite of granola bar into his mouth. He tossed the wrapper in the general direction of the bin, then turned to face Barry, his expression twisting with a mix of anger and regret. "C'mere. Lemme see." 

"It'll be healed in another few minutes. Don't worry about it," Barry insisted, reaching up to cover his bruised cheek with one hand. 

Rory grunted, then pointed at the bedspread next to him. " _Sit_."

Barry huffed, but obediently joined him on his bed. "Seriously, don't make a big issue about it. I get worse than this most of the time I put on my suit." 

"Not the point," Rory snapped, tone angry, but the fingers that touched under Barry's chin, turning his head so Rory could get a better look, were gentle enough that even a kid would have been able to resist, if they'd wanted to. "Shouldn'ta been throwin' punches. 'Specially after drinkin'." 

"I started it," Barry couldn't help pointing out, because he _had_.

"Lenny were here, he'd have my head. Dun matter who started it," Rory insisted. "Lemme see yer shoulder." 

"It's _healed_ ," Barry said, because it didn't even twinge any more. "And why the hell would Snart being getting on you for _me_ starting a fight?" 

Rory proceeded to stare at him in silence, clearly waiting for something. 

"Oh, for the love of god," Barry muttered, then tugged off his shirt and twisted so Rory could see that his shoulder was _fine_.

Rory's fingers against his bare shoulder were warm and gentle, and Barry couldn't quite stop a shudder at the touch of skin-on-skin. " 'M not Lewis," Rory said, right before one hand curled around Barry's side to tug him into a better position to, judging by the gentle hands combing through his hair, check where the glass had hit his head. 

Barry let Rory turn him, mind short-circuiting and taking a dive south at the unexpected touch – it had been _months_ since the last time he'd had sex, okay? And Rory was both his soulmate and attractive, and they were _on a bed_ – before Rory's words registered and Barry's body cottoned on that sex wasn't on the table. "Snart's dad?" he heard himself say, even as he connected the dots: Lewis Snart had abused his kids when he'd got drunk, so of course Snart – Leonard – would take issue with Rory throwing punches while inebriated. 

"Blood in yer hair," Rory said quietly, regret clear in his voice. 

"It'll wash out," Barry pointed out. 

Rory was quiet for a long moment, his fingers continuing to gently comb through Barry's hair, like he was maybe trying to get the blood out that way. (Barry wouldn't be surprised if Rory had to wash his hands after; he doubted the blood would have dried enough for it to just flake off.) 

And then Rory quietly said, "I'm sorry. Shouldn'ta punched ya. Shouldn'ta said all that stuff, neither." 

All of what–? Oh. 

Barry swallowed down the return of bile climbing his throat and made himself ask, "Was it? My fault?" 

Rory's hands left his hair, and when Barry twisted to face him, Rory was staring down at the stain of red on his hands. "Dunno," Rory finally said, which wasn't particularly comforting. "Mighta gone without ya puttin' ideas in his head." 

Barry took that to mean it _was_ his fault, at least a little. Which, well, _shit_.

'Central City's saintly little superhero', indeed; turned out Barry's actual superpower was getting the people around him killed. 

"I'm going to bed," he whispered, because he needed to just _not be_ for a while. 

When Rory grunted in response, Barry got up and got ready in silence, then climbed into bed and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping sleep would come quick.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'll be honest, I was _vaguely_ disappointed in the lack of name-calling in the reviews last chapter. (My beta had some words for Mick.)  
>  Oh well.

Mick wondered if he shouldn't have explained that, if anyone was at fault for Lenny's death, it was _him_. Except he wasn't drunk enough to tackle that particular fuckup, and the kid hadn't pushed, so Mick had held his silence. Had let the kid get ready for bed and tuck himself into the other bed, then got ready and turned over to sleep as well. (He was pretty sure that going back out to finish getting wasted wasn't going to go over well with the kid, and he didn't really want to find out how hard the Flash could punch when he meant it.) 

Once he finally got to sleep, he had expected to stay knocked out until well after dawn, whereupon he would very likely spend a chunk of time regretting the decisions of the night before; it wasn't an uncommon life occurrence. 

Instead, he woke after what felt like no time at all, all of his senses coming to life in that way that meant _danger_. Something like law enforcement or a time pirate having found him. (Or Lenny suffering a nightmare, which was impossible, any more.) 

While there was no way it could be a time pirate – he'd given that life up, thanks, and he'd left what little remained of Chronos' equipment was on the Waverider, so if someone was hunting him, they were English's problem – it was certainly possible that someone had recognized him and put in a tip to the police. Which would suck, but the kid could probably speed them out of trouble, or else Mick would have to make him out to be a hostage; the kid didn't need a record just because he'd let himself be bullied into taking a holiday. 

Mick shuffled a bit and turned over in bed, trying to make it look like natural movement in his sleep, in case someone was peeking through the inevitable hole in the shitty curtains. Then he carefully cracked one eye open, hoping to spot something to give away the numbers, or how much time he had to get the kid up. 

Except, he realized right away, it wasn't the cops that woke him, but _the kid_. Who was lying flat and rigid in his bed, his blankets twisted around him, yellow electricity sparking over his skin. 

Mick was frozen in shock for a moment, but then a spark of electricity lit the kid's face, and it looked like he was in _agony_. That got him scrambling out of bed and over to the kid's. But he stopped at the edge, uncertain how to help, because if he touched the kid, it looked a lot like he'd get a nasty jolt. "Red!" he hissed, and kicked the bed. 

The kid didn't so much as twitch. 

Well, shit. 

Was the kid even _breathing_?

There was nothing for it, so Mick took a breath, then reached down and gave the kid's shoulder a rough shake. "Barry!" he hissed, hoping the kid's name would snap him out of it where his nickname hadn't; he was pretty sure the kid had done the same thing to him in the pub. 

The electricity didn't shock him on contact. Instead, it sort of sparked off into the air, vanishing, and the kid gasped in a breath, eyes snapping open. 

Mick had about half a second to feel relieved, and then the kid started scrambling to get off the bed and away from Mick, whimpering what sounded suspiciously like, "Oh, god, nonononono!" 

" _Red_!" Mick snapped, and grabbed his wrist to keep him in place. Even though he'd never have done that with Lenny, because that just would have made things worse. 

The kid, though, froze, and Mick was fairly certain he was being stared at. "Rory?" he rasped, and it sounded a little like he'd screamed himself hoarse. 

"Yeah. We're in Coast City, remember?" 

He was pretty sure the kid had nodded, but the motion was a little too jerky for him to be certain in the dark. "Light?" he requested. 

Mick reached over and turned on the lamp between their beds. 

The kid sort of slumped, his eyes sliding closed. They didn't stay that way for long, popped back open almost right away, and the kid twisted his wrist in Mick's grip, grabbing his wrist back before he could think he wanted to get free. As though the kid _needed_ the contact. Needed to ground himself in the real world. 

Mick knew that need, had been struggling so desperately against his Chronos conditioning until Lenny had stepped into his cell to fight, and it all had slid away at the first punch, letting him think clearly at last. Because Lenny had always been his rock. 

Had he somehow become the kid's rock? 

(Had the kid become his?) 

"Y'alright?" Mick asked instead of thinking any further on that particular bucket of worms. 

The kid let out a shuddering breath and shook his head. "Please stop hovering. I just– Right now, I can't–"

"Yeah, alright," Mick agreed and, since the kid didn't seem like he'd be letting go of Mick's hand any time soon, he climbed into the kid's bed and lay down next to him. 

The kid relaxed a bit more. Still wouldn't close his eyes for more than a quick second – he kept snapping them back open like there was something _terrifying_ lurking in the dark spaces behind his eyelids – but Mick couldn't really hold that against him, since he'd never much liked going back to sleep after a nightmare, either. 

"Wanna talk 'bout it?" he offered; he'd never been much interested about talking about his nightmares, but Lenny had liked to ramble. Lulled him back to sleep, or something. 

The kid shook his head and whispered, "Zoom." 

Yeah, Mick supposed that about summed it up. And he supposed it explained why Mick in the dark had spooked him, because Zoom had worn all black, from what he could remember about that broadcast while Lenny was still in Iron Heights. 

The way the Flash had been hanging, limp, in Zoom's hold had given him chills, at the time. Now, the memory made him in turns sick and angry. He opened his mouth to ask...he wasn't sure what, honestly. Probably nothing that would help. 

The kid beat him to the punch, asking, "Will you tell me what happened? To Snart." 

Mick choked in a breath and squeezed his eyes shut; right from one nightmare to the other, was it? 

The kid squeezed his wrist, and Mick wanted to hate that that helped him breathe a little easier, that that touch made it hurt a little less to remember waking up just in time to watch his soulmate get blown up. 

Lenny'd been the kid's soulmate, too, even if they'd never touched skin-to-skin, never known each other as more than nemeses who occasionally helped the other out. He supposed he owed it to him to tell him what had happened. 

Mick took a careful breath and made himself open his eyes, meet the shadowed green eyes watching him. The kid looked a little like he was about to take his request back, and Mick had to wonder how many times the kid had wanted to ask, but talked himself out of it. 

(Shit, he'd fucking gone and blamed the kid only a few hours ago, hadn't he? Kid needed to know, before Mick got hammered and fucking did that again.) 

"Y'know the Professor, Stein, and the kid he joins up with?" he asked, because clarifying how the kid was connected to the team would help, a little bit. Maybe. (Certainly make it easier if the kid had at least a little bit of an idea about the people involved.) 

"Jax?" the kid replied, tone a little uncertain. "Sure. Dr Stein told us they'd be travelling for a bit. Weren't sure how long they'd be out of contact, just that we shouldn't expect them to show up if we needed to close another singularity." He smiled, but it was a bitter, broken sort of thing, and Mick wondered what had really happened the day the black hole opened above Central City. 

Mick cleared his throat, trying to remember who else on the team the kid would have known. Possibly all of them, save English? Heroes all seemed to know each other. " 'N you know Haircut. Palmer." 

"The Atom? Sure," the kid agreed, a confused frown making the space between his brows wrinkle in a manner that was maybe a little cute. 

(Mick had _not_ just thought that, fuck him.) 

"He came to Central last year and Cisco helped with his suit. The Green Arrow mentioned he'd survived the explosion at Palmer Tech, but I guess he went travelling for a bit, rather than trying to take his company back over." 

Heroes really _did_ all know each other, holy shit. " 'N Blondie? Uh, White Canary." 

"Sara?" the kid asked, something terribly sad about his expression, and Mick recalled that Blondie's sister had died while they'd been gone. "She was...travelling, too? No one could reach her when Laurel died." 

"Yeah. 'N the bird people. Uh–"

"Kendra and Carter?" the kid guessed, pushing himself up on one elbow so he could frown down at Mick and, he assumed, see every inch of his face, without the pillows in the way. "Wait, you and Snart were travelling with everyone else who fell off the face of the earth for five months?!" 

Mick cleared his throat and explained, "This English asshole picked us up, said 'e needed a crew t' hunt down 'n kill Vandal Savage." 

"We killed him months ago, though," the kid insisted, shaking his head. "Kendra and Carter and the Green Arrow's team and mine." 

Mick nodded. "S'what they told us, yeah. 'Cept Savage regenerates 'less he's killed in a certain way, 'n ya didn't manage it." 

"What?" the kid breathed, dropping back to his pillow and looking a little like Mick had just given him more nightmare fodder. 

"He's dead. Fer good. We saw t' that," Mick promised. "English, the one who grabbed us all, he's from the future. Had a ship what could time travel." 

The kid's eyes went wide. "Oh my god. _That's_ why no one could reach you! _Time travel_. No wonder Dr Stein went along." He snorted, a smile twisting his mouth into something a little happier. "Screw that, no wonder _Ray_ went." 

"Ya _have_ met him," Mick couldn't resist saying. 

The kid let out a short laugh, his expression easing a bit more. "And so have you, clearly. How many times did you threaten to shoot him?" 

" _A lot_ ," Mick replied, maybe a little too cheerfully, because one of his greatest joys, as Chronos, was being able to shoot Haircut without anyone calling him out for not being a team player; guy might have suffered torture for him, but that didn't make him any less irritating. 

The kid's laugh was a little less abrupt, that time, and his smile stayed for a long moment. Until something seemed to occur to him and a shadow of what looked like grief and regret darkened his expression. "Did Savage kill Snart?" 

"No." Mick sighed and looked down, towards where their hold on each other had shifted to a more comfortable hand holding. Which really shouldn't have seemed _comfortable_ to him, but, with the kid, it was. (Soulmates, ugh.) "Savage, he had allies with the body in charge 'o time travelers. They were pr'tectin' him. Takin' away the will o' time, too, a bit." 

"Taking away the will of time?" the kid repeated. 

Mick frowned, trying to think of how best to explain the specifics of time travel to someone who'd never done it. Then he remembered his uncertainty about speedsters and time travel and asked, "Ya ever time travelled?" 

"Yes," the kid answered, sounding cautious. "If I run fast enough, I can open a portal to the Speed Force, travel through it back through time." 

Mick blinked at him, a little disturbed at the proof that speedsters could just...skip back in time whenever they pleased. No wonder the Time Pigs had seemed to hate them and banned anyone from interacting with them. "Ya ever tried t'change sum'thin' 'n it didn't take?" 

"Not...quite." The kid frowned and rubbed at his mouth. "But, the man who killed my mom, Eobard Thawne, he was from the future and he came back to my past to kill me." 

A chill went down Mick's spine, and he honestly couldn't say if it was because of the thought of the kid being dead before they could meet, or because of how completely that must have fucked up the timeline. Why hadn't the Time Pigs stopped this Thawne character? 

"Thing is, changing my future so I wouldn't become the Flash lost him his own speed–"

Another speedster. That explained things. 

"–and the only way for him to get back, was for me to become the Flash so I could open a path for him." 

" 'N ya did?" Mick asked. "That's what the singularity was from, weren't it?" 

The kid blinked at him, looking vaguely startled. "Uhm, well, yes, but no. We closed the one that started to open because of the path, but..." He swallowed and looked away, old grief and self-disgust darkening what Mick could see of his face. "Iris' soulmate, Eddie Thawne, was his ancestor, and he shot himself to keep Eobard from existing." 

"So the paradox created the singularity," Mick realized. _Shit_ , that was a massive mess. That sort of nonsense was why there had been so many laws surrounding time travel. Not to mention protecting certain persons of importance in history, such as the Flash. 

"Thawne – Eobard – once told me that the past _wants_ to happen," the kid offered quietly, grief in every word. "I'm not sure how true that is, though, because I've changed the past before. I kept a tsunami from taking out Central City, and Savage from killing everyone." 

"Some events can't completely be changed," Mick explained, because he had the answer to that. "Ya know the butterfly effect?" 

The kid frowned and nodded. "Sure. Butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world and it creates a hurricane on the other, right?" 

Mick shrugged. "Essentially. Some events – 'specially ones affectin' hundreds of people – must happen. Ya can change 'em ta happen t' a different hundreds a people, but it's still gonna happen. When ya overwrite sum'thin' like that, yer the butterfly, 'n yer jest movin' the hurricane sum'where else." 

The kid looked horrified and maybe a little green. "Oh my god," he whispered. 

And then he was gone, and Mick heard him retching in the bathroom before the blanket he'd still been partially tangled up in settled back onto the bed. 

"Shit," Mick mumbled, levering himself up and going to check on the kid. He felt a little bad, but time travel was _dangerous_ , and the kid needed to know what he was fucking with. If Mick had to be the one to fill him in, so be it; at least this way he maybe wouldn't chance doing something that would wipe out half the world, or whatever. 

He filled a cup of water from the sink on his way, then handed it down to the kid once he reached him. "Thanks," he whispered, and he sounded _wretched_. Mick debated getting down on the floor while the kid used his first mouthful of water to rise the taste out. He eventually decided to just stay standing, leaning against the doorframe, because he had no interest in falling asleep on another bathroom floor. 

"Before we met," the kid said quietly to his cup of water, "I was... I was going to go back. To the night my mom died. Stop Thawne from killing her." 

Mick swallowed down what tasted suspiciously like stomach bile. "Ya'd've created a paradox, opened another singularity. 'R else ya'd've fergot this timeline, prolly stopped bein' the Flash. 'N there woulda been a tragedy, sum'thin' ya couldn't stop 'ny more." 

The kid let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, I'm good at causing tragedies I can't fix. That and getting people around me killed; guess some things wouldn't change even if my mom survived." 

" 'S not yer fault. Doc Allen? Ya didn't kill 'im. Told ya that." 

The kid looked up at him, smiling a terrible smile that made Mick's chest hurt. "Zoom never would have come here if Eddie's death hadn't caused the singularity. And Eddie wouldn't have shot himself if Thawne wasn't about to kill me. And Thawne–"

Mick bent forward and covered the kid's mouth. "Ya didn't hold 'ny guns ta anyone's heads. Ya didn't _make_ them do _nothin'_. People have free will, 'n their choices're up t' them. Psychopaths'll kill, whether ya tell 'em to 'r not. 'N good people'll hurt themselves ta save ya. Sum'll even die–"

He stopped, unable to continue, because it occurred to him that the kid wasn't the only one who'd been blaming himself for the death of someone else. 

"Rory?" the kid called, sounding worried. 

"Snart," Mick forced himself to say. And then, because this was their third and that meant he was _safe_ , he corrected, " _Lenny_. He– English saw Haircut blowin' himself up, dyin' ta take out the Time Pigs, so me 'n him, we knocked Haircut out 'n I took his place. Owed 'im fer havin' my back in the gulag. Lenny–"

"Took your place," the kid finished for him. "Because he loved you." 

"Yeah," Mick croaked. And it didn't really help, because if he hadn't done that – if he'd just let Haircut die – Lenny wouldn't be gone. Him and Lenny would be off committing crimes together, maybe even through time, if Chronos' ship was still outside Nanda Parbat. He wouldn't be avoiding Lisa and trying to drink his liver back into the shit condition it'd been in before the Time Pigs'd 'fixed' him. 

But, then, if Lenny'd survived, what about the kid next to him? Would they even have ever met? Would they have come back to a world without the Flash in it, because no one had been there to stop the kid from going back in time again? 

Was Mick fated to only have one of his soulmates at a time? 

"Rory?" the kid called again, right before he got up and pulled Mick into a hug. Because the kid seemed to think hugs fixed things. Which, well, they _didn't_.

(But Mick was beginning to believe they maybe helped. Just a little.) 

" 'M not sleepin' on the bathroom floor 'gain," he muttered against the kid's shoulder. 

The kid huffed out a sound that could have been a laugh, if only it sounded a little less like it hurt in all the wrong ways. "Yeah, alright. Not sure I'll be getting back to sleep, though. Just to warn you." 

Mick grunted an acknowledgement, then forced himself to let go – when had he fucking started returning the hug, anyway? – and made his way back to his bed and climbed under the covers. 

The kid returned to his own bed and shuffled around a little bit, before a soft glow lit the walls of the room. "Is that going to bother you?" he asked. 

"Nah," Mick decided, because he'd survived thirty years of Lenny leaving lights on while he pulled all-nighters over his most recent heist plans or whatever blueprints had caught his fancy; he could sleep just fine with a light on. 

Mick was just starting to doze off when the edge of his mattress dipped, going especially slow, as though whoever it was wasn't certain they'd be welcome, or else were trying not to wake him. Or both, since there were only so many people who could get that close to Mick without setting off all his alarm bells. 

(It should probably disturb him that the kid had become one of those people after barely three days, but he blamed the soulmate thing.) 

Once the kid seemed to have settled, Mick twisted and threw an arm over his legs to keep him from trying to escape, because that seemed like the best option. 

He was asleep before the kid finished relaxing against the bed again. 

-0-

Barry was a little surprised to have fallen asleep again after Rory had woken him from his nightmares, but he had, as evidenced by him waking up next to Rory, warm and comfortable and _safe_ in a way that was so utterly unfamiliar. Which he... Well, he wasn't quite certain how to handle that, so he got up as carefully as he could, breathed in relief when Rory didn't so much as twitch, then went to use the toilet. 

His reflection, he saw while he was washing his hands, looked a lot less tired than he usually did after an interrupted night. And he supposed he _felt_ less tired, but it was always hard to judge that; who knew if it was wishful thinking on his part. 

He sighed and looked back towards Rory, who still hadn't moved. Time travel via space ship, huh? Well, that certainly explained some things. (Also, he was maybe a little jealous. Too many sci-fi show and movie marathons with Cisco.) 

Snart...well. Maybe Rory was right, maybe they never would have gone if Barry hadn't kept trying to convince Snart he was a good man. But, well, he _was_ a good man. And so was Rory, evidently, if he'd been willing to die for Ray. He almost wanted to talk to Ray, get his version of events. Not because he didn't _believe_ Rory – there had been too much honest agony in his voice for Barry to believe it was anything but the truth – but because he sort of wanted the opinion of someone less inclined to downplay heroics. 

But he didn't actually have a number for Ray, and he wasn't really ready for anyone to find out that him and Rory were soulmates. Wasn't sure he _ever_ wanted it to get out, honestly; he might be willing to overlook some minor crimes, but Rory still had a long rap sheet and more than a couple active warrants. Sulmates or no, if it got around that he was consorting with a wanted criminal, he'd lose his job. And very likely end up in Iron Heights for at least a couple years. Which would suck, although it would serve him right. 

He shook his head, trying to lose those thoughts, but the certainty that he deserved to get tossed in prison had been pretty constant since he'd failed to save Ronnie. Briefly eased by his time trapped in the Speed Force, by the _certainty_ that he was in the right, but when Zolomon killed Dad... 

He forced himself to take a shaky breath, to think of something other than Zoom and his dad. 

Iris. She was always a good distraction. A complicated one, especially after recent events, but she was still his best friend, his rock. He should probably ring her, check in on things in Central; he'd said two days, despite everyone else apparently thinking he needed a longer holiday, and it had been that. Iris would at _least_ be expecting a call. 

It took him a minute to find his mobile, because he hadn't had much use for it the past couple of days. At least he'd had the sense to plug it in at some point, so it had a full charge. There were a couple of alerts from Cisco's metahuman app, but they were all the minor ones that popped up when someone saw one of the handful of non-criminal metas using their powers in their everyday lives, so he ignored them. There was some junk email waiting for him, as well as a written reminder from Singh that he was on leave at least through the end of the week, and if he needed more time, it would be granted. (Barry was a little surprised that the captain hadn't mentioned that he'd have him kicked out if he was seen in the building again, but he supposed threats of violence in official communication wasn't the done thing.) 

Cisco had texted him some pictures of oil pumps, wind turbines, and fields, clearly taken through the car window, which led Barry to believe he and Caitlin had headed west when they left for their little holiday; they should be on his way if he needed to grab one or both of them on his way back to Central. But that was the sum total of the communication from his friends. Which, given how shitty the last couple of weeks had been, Barry couldn't pretend to be surprised. 

He threw on some trousers and made sure he had his key, then stepped outside to call Iris, because he didn't really want to wake Rory. 

_"How's the beach?"_ Iris asked as soon as she picked up; Barry suspected she'd done that just to keep him from asking after Central first thing. 

"Warm, sunny, and crowded," Barry told her in a dry voice, just to make her laugh, which she did. "I helped a couple kids build a sand castle yesterday." 

_"What I wouldn't give for video of that,"_ Iris told him with a laugh. _"How much did you nerd out, trying to get it **exactly** right?"_

"Oh my god, Iris. I haven't done that since we were, like, eight!" 

_"Uh-huh. And how about that structure you drove your shop teacher insane with in–"_

"That was _completely different_. It was _so_ not my fault that he didn't appreciate the work I put into that term project." 

Iris was laughing, quiet and honest, and Barry relaxed back against the wall outside his and Rory's room, smiling at the motel's carpark. It felt good to joke with Iris about something stupid that happened so long ago, the frustration he'd remembered suffering at the time was just a vague memory. 

"So," he asked once she'd quieted a bit, "how's Central?" 

_"Fine, as I'm sure you've already seen by checking the meta app religiously,"_ Iris returned in that tone of voice that meant she was rolling her eyes. 

"I actually...haven't," Barry admitted. "I don't think I checked it at all yesterday." Which he should feel bad about, probably, but if something truly serious came up, the app wouldn't be the only thing setting his mobile to make noise. 

_"Oh? That beach must be super distracting,"_ Iris said, and although she didn't actually ask, Barry could hear the question in her voice: 'What could distract you from Central City so thoroughly?'

Barry swallowed and looked up at the wide expanse of blue sky above him. "I...found my soulmate?" he told her, because this was Iris, the love of his life and his best friend, and she deserved to know. 

_"Oh my god,"_ Iris breathed, and Barry couldn't really tell how she felt about that from the tone of her voice. _"Bare, that's **huge**!"_

"Yeah." 

_"No wonder you've been ignoring your mobile! What's she like? Are you going to bring her back to Central so we can meet her? Is she **from** Central?"_

"Iris!" Barry called, a little disturbed to recognize her reporter voice. Also, at her calling Rory female; he'd really stuck himself in it this time, hadn't he? She wasn't going to leave him alone until he either let them meet, or came up with a _damn_ good reason why they shouldn't. He cleared his throat in the silence following her finally shutting up, squeezed his eyes shut, and admitted, " _He_ is from Keystone. And it's complicated." 

Iris was quiet for a moment that felt like an eternity, then she said, sounding cautious, _"I forgot that you dated a guy in college."_

"It's not like that." 

_"Bare, it's your **soulmate**. Of course it's like that."_

"Okay, no. No, being soulmates is not an automatic sign that you're going to end up in bed together." 

_"It's as good as,"_ Iris returned, firm and insistent. _"I've **been** there, Bare, okay? I know there's no denying–"_

"This is not like you and Eddie!" 

She breathed in a sharp breath on the other end of the line. 

"Shit. Shit, Iris, I'm sorry. I didn't mean–"

_"Barry,"_ she interrupted, her voice quiet, but firm in that way she'd got from Joe, which meant he'd best listen to her, or god help him. _"This guy is **literally** the other half of your soul. You don't just let that **go**. And if you think I'm going to make you pick **me** over **him** –"_

"Oh my god, that's not what this is about!" 

_"Then explain it to me."_ The 'and it had best be good' went unsaid, but Barry knew it was there. 

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Look. Okay. He's been in a relationship for...I don't know, a while. Like, a _long_ while. And his boyfriend just died, same as– same as Dad. So this whole– He's not looking, and like I told you, I'm not either. So we're not– It's complicated. I told you. Okay?" 

_"Okay,"_ Iris replied quietly. _"But now you listen to me, Barry: He is your **soulmate**. It doesn't matter if you hate him on principle because he's stupidly pretty and so many kinds of stuck-up cocky–"_

Barry couldn't quite hold back a laugh, though it came out a little strained, because Iris had spent _so much time_ bitching about Eddie when he first got assigned to their precinct; she maybe didn't have the same sort of history with Eddie as Barry had with Rory, but there had almost certainly been a period of time, there, while Barry was in his coma, where Iris had struggled with her own first impressions of her soulmate. He knew that, that not every match went well from the start. (That some matches went so utterly sour, one of them ended up killing the other. And he honestly and sincerely hoped that wouldn't happen with him and Rory. If only because he couldn't lose yet another person, not even his criminal soulmate.) 

_"Bare, you're going to love him. One day, you're going to wake up and realize you can't live without him. And he's going to realize the same. And I love you, you know I do, but I can't get between that. I can't play second fiddle to the other half of your soul, any more than you could with me and Eddie."_

"I know," Barry whispered, because he did. Because a part of him – that hollow, lonely part of him that had just kept getting bigger and bigger every time someone died or betrayed him – was already way too attached to Rory, legal difficulties aside. "I just–" He sighed. "Right now, I need to focus on keeping him from committing suicide by alcohol, okay? I can't– Whatever happens with, with the rest of it, with fate, I can't think about that right now." 

_"Shit,"_ Iris said with real feeling. 

"Yeah." 

They were both quiet for a long moment, Barry staring out across the carpark. 

And then Iris let out a long breath that was almost a sigh and said, _"Central City is okay, right now. We've got this. You worry about your soulmate."_

Barry snorted. "Yeah, I know." 

_"Which, actually, it occurs to me, does he know? About your night job?"_

Subtle; she was clearly not at home. "Yeah, he knows." And Barry was starting to think it hadn't been Snart who'd told him; Ray was nearly as bad as Felicity and Barry himself when it came to stopping himself from saying too much, and Barry knew way too many of the people Rory'd travelled with for the Flash _not_ to come up. Probably. Which meant Snart had kept his word until the very end, and Barry wasn't really certain how to feel about that. 

Iris snorted. _"Well, that's something, I suppose. So he's not going to freak out if you vanish to handle an emergency."_

"Pretty much, yeah. I did warn him that I might have to run back to Central, if something happens there." 

Barry could almost _see_ Iris rolling her eyes at him. 

"Thanks," he told her, because while he didn't really feel _better_ , per se, about leaving Central with Rory, he felt a little less like a complete jerk for blowing her off and then running straight to his soulmate. Which he actually hadn't really realized had been weighing on him, but he supposed it made sense; it was never going to be easy, picking between one of the most important people in his life and the other half of his soul. 

_"Don't go thanking me yet; you're introducing us as soon as you're both back in the Twin Cities,"_ Iris informed him. And he didn't doubt for one second that, if he tried to put her off, she'd find a way to hunt Rory down and meet him without Barry. Which, as poorly as Barry expected them meeting to go, it would be infinitely worse if he wasn't there to mediate. And/or warn Iris that she was about to meet Heat Wave. 

"Oh my god. Why are we friends?" 

Iris laughed, sounding so much brighter and happier than Barry could remember her being of late. And he wondered how much his own stress and grief had been pulling her down. 

Maybe it really was for the best that he'd left Central for a while; she deserved someone in her life who would leave her smiling, not drag her down with him. Her certainty that him and Rory would end up together was probably the best possible outcome of the whole mess, honestly. 

He remembered the fear of Zoom attacking the people he loved that had led to him letting Patty go, and the proof that, if his enemies found out who he was, they would rip his family apart to break him. 

If he had to be with someone, better it was someone like Rory, who could damn-well take care of himself; he might not be able to cut Iris out of his life entirely, but at least she was less of a juicy target if they were just best friends. 

"I'll let you get back to work." 

_"Bare? You okay?"_ Iris asked, because she clearly knew him far too well. 

Barry forced himself to smile, because he knew that would transmit, at least a little, through his voice. "Yeah. Just remembered I haven't eaten yet. And you know how I get." 

_"Yeah,"_ she agreed, but she didn't sound convinced. _"Go eat, then. And take care of yourself, okay?"_

"Of course. And you don't go cornering any gangsters up on the top floor of a high rise until I get back, got it?" 

_"That's my **job** , Barry. Don't start sounding like Dad."_

Barry rolled his eyes, because the fact that she'd already done that once, meant it was a valid concern. "Yeah, yeah. I'll see you." 

_"Yeah. Bye, Bare."_

"Bye." He hit the end call button, then leant back against the wall and sighed, letting his eyes fall closed. 

It occurred to him that he'd basically just decided that he'd rather Rory be a target over Iris, and he winced because _shit_ , that was an asshole thing to want. Rory might be a criminal, but he wasn't that bad a guy, really. Not deserving of the death penalty, certainly. Yet there Barry was, preparing to hand him over to the figurative wolves, just because he wanted Iris safe. 

God, he really was a terrible hero, wasn't he? No wonder he'd ended up with two criminals as soulmates. 

-0-

If either of them had expected things to be easier after the night before, it was pretty clear that wouldn't be the case. The kid was quiet and hunched, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and Mick felt a little like he woken on the wrong side of the bed that morning, which, if it had anything to do with what he'd heard of the kid's phone conversation, well. He was fully determined to pretend otherwise. 

Breakfast was eaten in a grim sort of silence, then they retreated to the beach, where the kid made straight for the ocean waves with an expression that left Mick wondering if he was debating the pros and cons of drowning himself. Well, he was damn-well welcome to, if he felt that was the best way to deal with Mick's attempts to 'suicide by alcohol', or what the fuck ever. 

His dark mood didn't last long – not having a cooler to cart beer down to the beach with them may have helped, and stealing a pair of jeweled sunglasses that Lisa would love and fifty dollars in cash _definitely_ helped – but the kid's whatever clearly wasn't so easy to dispel, given he still looked like he was grieving his whole existence when they found somewhere for lunch. 

Mick would be the first to admit that he had no idea what heroes did to cheer themselves up (bring in bad guys, he assumed?), so he went for what always worked for him and Lenny: Stealing. 

Which, well, the kid was almost certainly a novice, so Mick started with the basics: Explaining how to spot an easy mark. 

To his credit, it didn't take the kid long to figure out why he was pointing out absentminded pedestrians as they walked past the restaurant. "Are you _seriously_ trying to tell me who to steal from?" he hissed after the third person, leaning forward across the table as he did so. 

Mick took a moment to debate his response – the kid looked more disbelieving than angry, and he _had_ been letting Mick get away with stealing on the beach, so he _probably_ wasn't going to threaten to drag him to the nearest police station – before admitting, "Yeah. Gotta problem with that?" 

"I–" The kid covered his face with one hand and shook his head. "Of course you are. I'm not sure why I'm surprised." 

" 'S good practice, spottin' them what aren't payin' 'ttention," Mick insisted, a little annoyed at himself for feeling annoyed at the kid's response. 

The kid huffed out a noise that could have been a laugh, then dropped his hand and looked out at the passing crowds. "It's not just inattention, though, is it? It's loser clothing that you can slip a hand into without them noticing, or bags that are easily accessible." 

Okay, Mick could admit that he wasn't expecting that response. 

"Please. I grew up with a cop; I got _all_ of the warnings about how best to keep my things from being stolen," the kid said, clearly seeing Mick's surprise. "And I got a refresher when I got hired. Although that was more about avoiding any holes in the chain of custody for a piece of evidence." 

" 'Cause 'o them what the Families hire t' clean up their messes," Mick assumed, because it was no secret in the circles he'd once run in that there was always a need for people willing to tamper with evidence, either before it made it to whatever lab, or once it was in that lab or lockup. Not really Mick's forte, but he knew Lenny had pulled a few of those jobs over the years, and Lisa got a weird sort of pleasure out of charming guards and members of staff so they'd do the job for her. (Honestly, Mick would be happier just burning down evidence lockup, but the first time he'd suggested that, Lenny had pointed out that that might let pedophiles and their like free. And Mick might have a shitty moral compass, but he'd never been far gone enough to let a pedophile out on the streets.) 

"Essentially, yeah. Though the crime families aren't the only problem; if there's a chance that a piece of evidence has been compromised, and either of the lawyers involved in the trial find out, they can strike it from record. And, sometimes, you've only got one good piece of evidence." 

Oh, yeah; Lenny was meticulous, but even he'd had bad days, and Mick knew of at least three warrants for his arrest that had been based on a single piece of evidence. (Mick, himself, was far less careful, but his habit of burning everything he could set on fire usually helped him cover his tracks.) 

"So," the kid said when Mick didn't say anything further, "why are you trying to teach me who to, ah, _borrow_ things from?" 

Mick rolled his eyes at the kid's dancing around the topic. Not that he could talk, really; he had no interest in coming out and admitting he was teaching him because stealing was one of the few mood enhancements the Time Pigs hadn't managed to take from him. "Watchin' fer easy marks is a good way t' distract. Good focusin' work." 

The kid blinked a couple of times, looking maybe a little startled. "Oh," he said at last. 

When he didn't say anything else, just went back to his food, Mick cautiously pointed out another mark. The kid followed the woman with eyes that had the same sort of too-sharp intelligence that Lenny used to get, and it was...actually sort of soothing. Even though Mick would have expected it to hurt, to cause that empty space in his chest to throb all over again. 

"Maybe," he said to the kid once he'd paid and they were heading back to the beach, "I'll teach ya' t' pickpocket next." 

A breeze swept over him, apparently localized, given no one else's clothing looked to have been ruffled, and then the kid held out Mick's wallet. "I think I'm good," he said with a wide, smug smile. 

Mick snatched his wallet back, torn between being impressed and being annoyed. He settled on annoyed and informed the Flash, "Usin' yer speed's _cheatin'_."

"Isn't cheating the point?" 

Mick huffed and turned a glare on the kid, because he didn't have a good response to that. Except maybe one that would be a little too close to a pun. 

Ah, there was the ache of the hole in his chest. 

The kid cleared his throat, the sound distinctly uncomfortable, and Mick forced his hand away from his chest, irritated that he'd been rubbing at the ache again. 

"So, should I teach you about what _I_ do for a living?" the kid asked, just a little abrupt, and Mick turned to glare at him, only to see the kid was looking towards the patio of one of the restaurants along the boardwalk. 

"What, savin' people?" Mick replied, not even bothering to keep the note of derision out of his voice; he'd had enough of being a hero. 

"No," the kid replied, something odd in his voice that Mick couldn't quite place, but which didn't sound like he was upset about Mick not giving a damn about him being a superhero. "Being a CSI." 

Mick frowned, uncertain why that would have come up. But the kid hadn't looked away from that patio, so he stepped up behind him, only to flinch at the spark of energy that arced between them without them touching. It didn't hurt, and the kid didn't even seem to notice, but Mick realized pretty quickly it had happened because the kid was _vibrating_. "The fuck's so interestin'?" he demanded, admittedly a little concerned. 

"That family," the kid said, still with that odd note in his voice, "with the two kids actually in their seats." 

Mick followed the kid's stare and blinked, because it wasn't hard to spot the family, if only because the other three sets of parents seemed to be struggling to keep their kids seated, even when food was in front of them. There was something slightly off about the scene, but Mick couldn't quite put his finger on it, wasn't certain he'd even have noticed if the kid hadn't pointed them out. "Yeah?" he said, when he still couldn't quite figure out what about them had the kid vibrating. 

"The dad's abusive." 

Mick couldn't quite keep from sucking in a sharp breath, because now that it had been pointed out, he could see it: The kids kept looking between the male adult and the other kids, and the woman was slouched slightly and maybe leaning away from the man, just a little. And all of them, except the man, was wearing a long-sleeved shirt over what were clearly swim clothing, with both of the kids' shirts being wet. 

The furtive looks and the slouched posture were things he'd seen Lenny do around Lewis, now he thought about it. Not that he'd seen much of Lenny around Lewis, not after he'd suggested he punch the fucker bloody. 

"Didn't think that were CSI business, readin' body language," Mick said, in part to distract himself from thoughts of Lewis and Lenny, but also to distract himself from the burning need to turn his old rage on a new target. Even if said target would deserve it. 

The kid shrugged one shoulder, a spark of electricity racing over the fabric of his shirt. 

Mick reached up and pressed his hand down on the kid's shoulder. " _Red_ ," he said, stressing the nickname to hopefully get the kid's attention. 

The kid startled, then looked at the hand on his shoulder, just in time for a spark to crawl over Mick's hand. The kid jerked away, looking horrified. "Oh my god! I'm sorry! I didn't even–!"

"Doesn't hurt," Mick interrupted, because he'd seen that expression on Haircut's face enough time to guess the kid was about to spew an apology. 

"I–" The kid blinked and looked down at his hand, a frown creasing the space between his eyebrows. "Really?" 

"Really." 

The kid blinked at him. "Huh. That's– Huh. Caitlin and Cisco always complain about my shocking them," he added, either reading Mick's intention to ask what he was 'huh'ing about, or otherwise realizing he needed to explain himself. "I guess it's a soulmate thing?" 

Mick grunted; given how he hadn't been shocked yet, even when touching the kid during his nightmare, he thought there might be something to that. Not that he had any interest in rehashing the events of the night before. So he turned his attention, instead, back to the family, who looked to have just got their check for the meal. 

The kid twisted, following Mick's stare back to the family. "It's not," he said as the waitress picked up the little tray with – judging by the gleam of the sun on plastic – the man's credit card. "CSI work, I mean. Not really. But, well, I grew up with a cop. And one of my first cases was a mom killing her live-in boyfriend. She would have got murder one if I hadn't noticed a couple of old bruises on her and the eldest daughter. Well," he added, his voice twisting with something old and tired, "and if I hadn't irritated the lead detective on the case to the point that he asked the right questions during the interview, just to shut me up." 

Mick knew well how cops could get when they were certain they had their criminal, and was more than a little impressed that the kid had managed to get one – not his adopted father, he assumed, since he doubted the kid would have needed to resort to irritating West to get him to ask the right questions – to let off their bit long enough to get the real story out of their chosen perpetrator. 

"It's not just the crime scene, sometimes," the kid added, quiet and with an old grief adding weight to his words. "It's the people, too; can't put the whole puzzle together unless you have _all_ the pieces." And then he sighed. "I wish there was something I could do." 

Mick tore his glare away from the family – all of whom were getting up, and the way the woman was getting between the kids and the man, the way she flinched when the man wrapped an arm around her waist, made him want to kill someone – to look at the kid, who was watching the family, too, arms wrapped around his middle like he was trying to comfort himself. 

Or, Mick realized, recognizing the twist of the kid's mouth from a time Lenny had forced himself not to intervene when a guy was getting a little too handsy with Lisa, the kid was trying to hold himself back. For Lenny, it had been a case of Lisa being perfectly capable of breaking the handsy fucker's arm in three places on her own, but he suspected the kid's problem was more born of too many years not being able to get involved unless he actively _saw_ a crime being committed; even the Flash didn't intervene without first seeing a crime occurring. 

Well, Mick didn't care what the law said most of the time, and there was no Lisa there who could hold her own. So he snorted, patted the kid's shoulder, then started towards the family. 

" _Rory_!" the kid hissed behind him. 

Notably, the kid didn't actually attempt to _stop_ him, though Mick suspected he would be more than capable of doing so, and Mick allowed himself to smile, wide and just a little mean. 

There were probably a dozen different ways he could have approached handling the man, and if Lenny were there, he'd be weighing the pros and cons of each way, would settle on the best possible way long before letting Mick lose to see the deed done. (Assuming Lenny didn't decide to see to the matter personally. Which he might have, in this case.) 

But Lenny wasn't there, and Mick wasn't particularly fond of the part of him that was trying to strategize approaches – another gift from the Time Pigs – in his place, so he just went for the direct attack: Walking right up to the guy and slamming his fist into his face hard enough to knock him to the ground. 

The woman scrambled back, placing herself between the kids and Mick in a way that looked way too practiced. "The _fuck_!?" the man shouted. Or, well, that's what Mick _assumed_ he meant to shout; his bloody nose and the tooth that dropped out of his mouth as soon as he opened it to speak made it a little hard to understand him. 

"Real fuckin' shitty, ain't it, gettin' hit by sum'un bigger 'n stronger 'n ya'," Mick replied, was actually kind of pleased with how _violent_ he sounded. "Ya ever heard this 'un? Do unto others as ya'd 'ave done unto you." 

The man immediately looked to the woman, who – Mick saw as he leant down to cuff the guy – was staring at Mick like she couldn't believe he was real. 

"Dun go lookin' at her," Mick said, leaning down close enough that he could smell the man's lunch on his breath. "My soulmate's got a sharp eye 'n a quick mind, 'n useless shits like you 're _always_ obvious." 

"Police!" someone shouted, followed by, "Break it up!" 

Mick didn't quite flinch – he'd been a criminal for far too long to have tells so obvious – but he _did_ look up to check how close the cops were, only to realize he'd drawn a bit of a crowd. So he snarled, " _Child-beater_ ," down at the man he'd punched, just to get the people talking, make it impossible to let him talk his way out of the issue. 

And then he stepped back, into the crowd, and was unsurprised when a slim hand curled around his wrist and pulled him further into it. 

The rush of air and suddenly finding himself nearly on the other side of the beach from the boardwalk _was_ a surprise, and he couldn't quite stop himself from blinking at the kid a couple times. 

The kid cleared his throat and ducked his head. "Figured we could use a bit of space before someone recognized you." 

It hit Mick, then, that a part of him had expected Lenny to be there, pulling him out before it got too hot for them. But Lenny hadn't come, would never come again. Instead, the kid – the Flash – had been there to back him up, to get him out in time. Almost like he'd taken Lenny's place. 

His chest ached. 

"Rory?" the kid called, right before his hand came to rest over Mick's on his chest. 

The eyes that watched him were green, instead of blue, and the concern in them was so much more _obvious_ than Lenny ever would have let his own be.

"I need a drink," he heard himself say, and was glad it was that, instead of something meant to hurt the kid; it wasn't _his_ fault Mick felt like he was trying to replace Lenny. 

The kid's eyes narrowed, not quite unlike how Lenny's would have. But instead of suggesting sex or that Mick go burn something, the kid just said, "No." 

And then, without any warning, Mick was falling into ocean water. 

He flailed and sputtered and somehow managed to get his feet under himself before he drowned. And then he turned his most murderous glare on the kid, who was just out of throttling range. 

The kid grinned at him, wide and bright. 

"This means war," Mick informed him, because he was going to make the little shit pay for dropping him in water if it was the last thing he did. 

"Only if you can catch me," the kid replied in a voice that was somehow even more cheerful than Haircut at his happiest, yet simultaneously half as irritating. 

_Soulmates_.

By the time he managed to catch the kid, he was grinning that same delighted grin that usually only crept out during high-speed car chases with the cops. Or, he realized as he struggled to keep the squirming kid's head under water for more than three seconds at a time, when he'd been trying to burn a speeding man in a red suit with his flamethrower, Lenny laughing in delight next to him. 

_Soulmates_ , he thought with far more fondness than he'd ever admit to out loud, and let the kid go. 

"Hungry?" he asked the kid once he'd stopped sputtering and had mostly combed his hair out of his eyes. 

The kid snorted. "Yeah," he said in a tone that Mick was pretty sure actually meant 'of _course_ I'm hungry'. 

Mick shoved him, mostly because he could, and the kid laughed and caught his hand instead of shoving him back, using it to lead him out of the water. And if neither of them let go once they were out of the water, well. They _were_ soulmates.

.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, about that happy ending I promised...
> 
> As an aside, since canon (so far as I'm aware) didn't give us a name for Chronos' ship, and I got tired of referring to it that way, I went ahead and pulled a name out of Greek mythology for it. (It wasn't quite _necessary_ , but... *snickers*)

Their two days in Coast City turned into a week, which turned into two weeks almost without Barry noticing. He made a point to check his mobile every night, before turning in, but things in Central were quiet – Cisco made a joke, around day nine, about how Star City always had a period of limited crime after Oliver took out some horrible evil, and maybe they were enjoying the same thing – and Iris remained insistent that he needed to stay with his soulmate. (To the point that Singh emailed Barry to let him know that he'd got and approved his leave extension request, even though Barry didn't _remember_ requesting the extension, and Joe had sworn he hadn't put in on his behalf, though he seemed to approve of Barry taking a longer break. Iris, of course, admitted to nothing, but Barry knew her well enough to tell she'd been the culprit.) 

Somehow, after the play fight in the water, things got easier. 

Not _perfect_ – Barry still had to hunt Rory down at a bar every third night or so, and Rory woke him from more than a couple nightmares, and they both had times when they'd snarl insults at each other because something random set off their temper – but better than Barry ever could have expected their impromptu holiday would have gone. Rory never quite lowered himself to building sand castles, and Barry refused to actually participate in Rory's thieving on the beach; but Rory would let himself be drawn into the ocean to get Barry back for something, and Barry would quietly speed Rory away from any cops or the one time he almost got caught stealing. 

(And if Barry saw something – something so much worse than the petty thievery Rory took part in – because he was always moving just a little too fast, seeing just a little too much, but he couldn't always _do_ anything about it, and the police wouldn't get involved unless there was a crime to _see_... If he saw something and he mentioned it to Rory, Rory would go and commit violence, would solve it in a manner that Barry wouldn't have thought of, because no one in their right mind would look at him and think he was dangerous. And Barry would always be there to pull him out, after.) 

They found a middle ground, somehow, a space between their very different lifestyles where they could meet each other on even footing. Where they could reach out and take each other's hand or hug and it didn't matter that they had the shittiest fucking history, or that Rory was suffering from a broken heart and Barry had a huge crush on his best friend. 

(It didn't matter that Barry definitely also had a huge crush on Rory, despite all his attempts to _not_ , or that Rory almost certainly didn't like him back.) 

Somehow, they found something like peace, and a part of Barry – the part that would never recover from watching far too many people die just because they mattered to him and he had superpowers – wanted things to stay like that forever. 

Life, of course, is never that accommodating. 

-0-

Mick'd been innocently buying himself a hot dog from a vendor with money that wasn't his, when the screaming started. 

His first reaction was to try to find the kid – Barry; he'd finally got himself used to using that in his own head, but he still preferred to use 'Red' out loud – because he'd have done the same thing with Lenny, and too many months spent with a bunch of idiot heroes had taught him that–

Yup. Kid was in the middle of things, running around and getting people out of the way of water streams. 

Mick blinked and tilted his head to the side, considering the man who was standing in the small cyclone of water that bobbed along over the waves. He looked to be shouting insults – and throwing water streams – at a woman who was waist-deep in the water, between him and the beach. Given the water streams kept somehow curving around the woman – the man was getting progressively more red in the face each time – Mick assumed they were both metahumans. Which figured; of course it would be a couple of idiotic metas who would ruin their holiday. 

"Really?" Barry complained as he came to a sudden stop next to Mick, just as he was taking a bite of his hot dog; apparently, all of the innocent bystanders were enough out of the way that he felt secure taking a breather. 

"They were outta popcorn," Mick lied, just to watch Barry's face spasm in that way it did when he wanted to laugh, but didn't think he _should_. (Lenny would have had the _best_ time torturing the kid with that, and Mick did it half the time in his memory.) 

Barry huffed out an annoyed sound and looked back towards the fight on the water. "You'd be useless, anyway," he muttered. 

Mick grunted in agreement, because he knew better than to bring fire to a water fight. (Not that he actually _had_ his gun; he'd left it on the Waverider, even though he hadn't honestly been certain he'd be returning to the team.) Then he held out the other half of his hot dog, because he doubted Barry was going to stand back and watch, and he didn't particularly want to deal with a hypoglycemic speedster. 

"Thanks," Barry said, accepting the hot dog with one of his brighter smiles. (The ones that lit up his face and made him look all at once a little too young and a lot too fond; Mick was trying desperately _not_ to fall in love with those smiles, but he'd always been weak to the slightest show of affection, even if he was certain it was just Barry's usual manner.) 

The hot dog vanished before Mick could have drawn the breath to respond, had he cared to do so, and Barry didn't stick around much longer. 

By all appearances, Barry was going to try to talk sense into the metas first – part of Mick liked the idea of them being able to leave without his soulmate chancing life and limb to handle some little fight, but the rest of him wanted to smack Barry, because no way there'd be any talking the two down if they'd resorted to using their powers on a public beach – but Mick was distracted from watching the fallout – or stealing a replacement hot dog from the abandoned cart – by the sound of a gun's safety clicking off. 

There was a guy standing just out of reach to Mick's right, arms shaking as he brought up a handgun to point in the direction of the water. 

Mick didn't really think – didn't care who the guy was aiming at, or if he might have been a cop – he just saw a potential danger to his soulmate and moved, same as he would have done for Lenny. The gun was in his hand and pressed against the guy's temple before he could get a shot off, and Mick leant in and snarled, "Ya really think a gun's gonna stop th' likes o' _them_?"

"We can't let freaks run rampant–!"

Mick used the butt of the gun to knock the guy out, because he was fairly certain he'd have ended up killing him if he'd let him keep talking; _no one_ called his soulmate a freak. 

Rather than think too closely on his reaction – he knew he had a protective streak and zero tolerance for bigots, he just hadn't had cause to lash out on Barry's behalf yet – he turned back to the mess along the shore. Just in time to watch Barry barely manage to dodge a water attack from the man, only to get blown back along the sand by some sort of wind attack from the woman. 

"Goddamn fuckin' metas," Mick grumbled as he gave the gun in his hands a quick check, then raised it and fired two shots at the man. (The woman may have been closer, but Mick was more certain about his ability to hit a non-vital spot on the man, as much of him was out of the water. Besides, given the way the woman hadn't been hit by the man's attacks earlier, he couldn't one hundred percent say a bullet would hit her.) 

The man howled as at least one of the bullets hit him in the leg. Instead of crumpling or making an escape, however, like any normal person would have done, he sent a stream of water at Mick. 

Wind buffeted him, and Mick was suddenly a good few feet from his original position, a lifeguard tower blocking him from the metas in the water. "Don't. Help," Barry hissed, glaring at him and hands squeezing Mick's arms hard enough it actually ached a bit, despite the fact he couldn't reach all the way around. 

"The hell I'm gonna let ya–"

"I'm way more durable than you!" Barry practically shouted. "I can take these two fine, but not if I'm watching out for you, too!" 

"Never asked ya' t'watch fer me," Mick replied, irritated; it was bad enough the kid started twitching if he so much as _glanced_ at something alcoholic, but now he was gonna act like Mick couldn't hold his own in a fucking fight? "'M not fuckin' _glass_."

"Shut up and _stay here_ ," Barry ordered, and then he was gone. 

Mick fully intended to _not listen_ – or, at the least, use his new cover to shoot the metas on the water again – but he didn't get much further than peering around the edge of the lifeguard tower, before he stopped and stared. 

There was a whirl of what he was fairly certain was Barry – the yellow lightning sparking around the edges was familiar, and he was fairly certain the streaks of white and red were the kid's shirt and trunks, respectively – in the middle of the beach, which both the metas on the water were staring at, clearly ready to attack again, but uncertain where to aim. (The whirl wasn't _that_ large; Mick would have just aimed at the center and kept up the attack until he knew it had hit. Or, well, he probably wouldn't; Mick was almost glad Lenny was gone, because he honestly wasn't certain he'd be able to handle playing superhero and supervillains when he knew he'd be aiming at one of his soulmates.) 

Right before it looked like the two metas were going to try attacking – Mick noticed that all arguments seemed to have been set aside in favor of fighting the Flash as a team, which _figured_ – Barry jumped out of the whirl and sent a massive bolt of lightning into the water near the two metas, shocking them both to unconsciousness. 

Which, okay, maybe that was a good reason to stay put. Because if Mick had been in the water – or had one of the streams of water headed his way – he'd very probably have ended up out cold, too. 

Between one blink and the next, the two metas were laid out on the beach, and then Mick was buffeted by wind and found himself in their hotel room, clothing slowly settling around Barry's newly-opened suitcase and the door to the bathroom slamming shut. 

Mick blinked, snorted, then clicked the gun's safety back into place; he was getting a little too used to the sudden change in position that apparently came from spending time around the Flash. "Red?" he called as he moved to set the gun on the nightstand. 

The kid stepped out of the bathroom, changed into new clothing and noticeably red in the face. "My clothing wasn't friction-proof," he mumbled. 

It took Mick a couple seconds to figure out what that meant, but then he burst out laughing, because the thought of the Flash _actually flashing people_ was just _too good_. And it was absolutely the sort of terrible joke that Lenny would have found a way to make in the middle of a fight, just to make the rest of them groan. 

Remembering that sort of killed his humor, but the kid was already in front of him, face possibly even redder, as he snapped, "It's not _funny_!"

"Kinda is," Mick insisted, just to be difficult. And because teasing Barry helped distract him from the empty space next to them where someone else should have been standing. 

Barry huffed and crossed his arms over his chest and sort of slumped a bit. "Okay," he said in the sort of petulant tone that should have made Mick want to cuff him, but he actually just mostly found ridiculously adorable, "I guess it's _sort_ of funny." 

Mick snorted, then said, "New trick, that lightnin'?" Because he was pretty sure the kid would have used it on them in their first fight, otherwise. Unless he had a problem aiming it? 

Barry's expression went tight in that way that meant Zoom was involved, but Mick was still surprised when the kid said, "Zoom taught me." 

" _Zoom_ tau–" Mick started, because that just...didn't make sense. Teaching one of your enemies tricks he could use against you? 

"He was pretending to be our friend," Barry snapped, his voice tight and hard, like he was trying to be angry to keep from crying. "It seems to be a thing villains get a kick out of." 

Mick was fairly certain the kid wasn't talking about him or Lenny – though Lenny had worked with and then betrayed the Flash and his team at one point, he knew – but he honestly didn't know enough about any of the other opponents the kid had gone up against to say which other one(s) he might be talking about. 

He cast about for another topic – he already knew the kid didn't like talking about Zoom, and Mick didn't blame him, avoided talking about the Time Pigs and the Legends for what was likely a similar reason – but something about the lightning throwing was...important. Somehow. In some way. (That little corner of his brain where what little was left of Chronos had hidden was screaming at him.) So he asked, "How's it work? The lightnin'." 

"The–" Barry started a bit, his expression clearing. "I just– I mean, you've seen that I, uh, I spark?" 

"Noticed that, yeah," Mick agreed, because that was usually how he figured out the kid had seen something that he wanted to fix, but couldn't let himself get involved in, for whatever pointless do-gooder reason. (It was also what most likely woke Mick up when the kid was having a nightmare. Not that he'd ever told Barry as much.) 

Barry's mouth quirked with a helpless little smile. "Yeah, well, I run really, really fast in a tight circle, sort of... Well, I collect, I guess, those sparks, until I've got enough for what I need? Then I throw them." 

"How fast?" Mick heard himself asking from a bit of a distance, because he was starting to form an inkling of an idea. Something that would be utterly _impossible_ for him to do, but if Barry could go fast enough– "Fast enough to travel in time?" 

The kid frowned, something dark shadowing his face, but he quietly agreed, "Maybe, I don't know. It's easier to get that sort of speed while going straight, but I should be able to get enough momentum in a circle. Why?" 

"The place where Lenny–" _breathe_ "–died, the Vanishin' Point. It's outside o' time, where time drives 'n their sort can't be used, can't change thin's. But ya' use sum'thin' different." 

"The Speed Force," Barry agreed, face still shadowed. "You told me I shouldn't change time, though. If I stop Snart from dying, what will that do to, what did you call it? The will of time?" 

Mick shook his head, realizing he'd need to explain a lot more about the events surrounding Lenny's death. Which he _didn't want to do_ , didn't want to remember _any_ of it. But, too, he had hope, now. Tenuous and too close to impossible, but it was _there_.

He dropped to sit on his bed with a sigh, and motioned for the kid to sit on the other bed, which he did in a slow, careful manner that looked even more patently ridiculous for him than for non-speedsters. 

" 'Bout when time travel got perfected t'the point it were safe fer common use," Mick started, because he figured the back story could only help, "group o' law-minded sort decided it needed t'be regulated, so they created a force o' time police, sorta. The whole lot o' pretentious fucks eventually came t'the name Time Masters, 'n they built a home fer themselves in the Vanishin' Point, where they could observe 'n care fer time without it affectin' them. 

"English was a Time Pig, 'fore Savage offed his family. When they wouldn't help him fix it, he found us who would. The Time Pigs, though, they had a device, the Oculus, which let'em watch English 'n us, change things so there were nothin' we could do. 'N then they dragged us in to kill us all." 

Barry made a quiet, distressed noise, his expression dark with the same sort of shadows that Zoom brought, but he didn't say anything. 

"We figured destroyin' the Oculus, their source o' power, would be the only way t'beat 'em," Mick explained, hated the way his voice had gone thick. " 'Cept, the way Haircut devised, it needed sum'un t'be there when it exploded." 

"A suicide mission," the kid said, voice quiet and holding a world of meaning. Like, just maybe, he was a little too familiar with last-ditch efforts when it was do or die. 

(Mick suspected, his stomach churning, that he did, and would do even more in future.) 

"Yeah," he choked out, closing his eyes against either the memories or Barry. Or both. "I owed him, so I took his place. And Lenny–"

"Took yours," Barry said when Mick couldn't. Same as the last time they'd discussed Lenny's death. 

And then the bed dipped next to him, and hands wrapped around his, cradling it like their owner thought he was precious or some shit. (Or, more likely, like he thought physical contact made everything better; Mick hated, just a little, that the kid might be right about that.) 

He didn't pull away, but he didn't return the grip, either, figured that was an acceptable middle ground. "Thing is," he said without opening his eyes, refused to grimace at how rough his voice sounded, "the Oculus, it's a powerful artifact. Seeped in time in a place without. I think – pretty certain – if we take a ship, 'n ya open a path t' the moment it blew, Lenny should be able t' jump through. Avoid the explosion." 

"He wouldn't have to die, because he'd already done his part!" the kid said, sounding excited, and his hands squeezed Mick's. "Oh, but, wait. How would we get there?" He let out a quiet, tired-sounding laugh as Mick chanced looking at him, found a wry smile tugging across Barry's face. "I mean, uh, English or whoever, he must have a ship. But I can't imagine how we'll explain you bringing me in and me agreeing." 

Yeah, Mick didn't much want to tackle that hurdle, either. Given, he didn't _think_ Lenny would have told the others that they were soulmates – it was the sort of thing they usually kept to themselves, honestly – so they wouldn't have to tackle there being three of them, but _still_. Telling a bunch of wanna-be heroes that another hero's soulmate was an unapologetic criminal? (Especially a criminal they all thought was an idiot and who had spent far too long following them through time and space with the intent to kill them; brainwashing or no, he didn't have to overhear any uncomfortable conversations to know they would be struggling with trusting him because of that for a while.) 

Well, there was another option, thankfully, and Mick was quick to offer, "There's another ship we can use, Ananke. Left her in 1960, outside Nanda Parbat." Which, well, if the kid knew Sara, he _should_ know what that was.

Barry let out a moan and covered his face with one hand. "Oh my god. What _possessed_ you lot to leave a _time ship_ outside the home base of the _League of Assassins_?"

"Didn't have a choice." Mick shrugged. " 'N we were too busy after t' go back fer it." Or, more like, the others hadn't discussed it with him, and Mick had been perfectly happy leaving it where it was; figured it wouldn't hurt to have a time ship held aside if he got kicked off again. 

Barry let out what sounded suspiciously like a giggle, then he peered out at Mick from behind his hand, his smile just a little bit crooked. "We should go back to 1960 to retrieve it, shouldn't we?" 

"Yup." 

"And then go save Snart from an explosion that's already happened." 

Mick snorted, a little too amused that the kid made that sound like something a reasonable person would say. (Then again, the kid had traveled in time before, so maybe it _was_ reasonable. Sort of. For them, at least.) "Yup." 

The kid didn't stop smiling, but his next words curled out between them like something dark and terrible: "And then you and Snart fly off to make trouble in some other time's backyard." 

Barry didn't need to say that he wouldn't be leaving Central City, because that would never have been up for debate. (Even if Mick _hadn't_ had to push to get him to take a holiday, he already knew the Flash would spend his life keeping Central safe.) 

He'd never thought he might have the chance to have both of his soulmates at the same time, hadn't thought he'd get Lenny back at _all_. He'd settled himself to mourn the long way around, maybe try to find a place for himself when Barry _had_ to get back to Central. He'd halfway assumed he'd be out of the picture by the time Barry married his foster sister – fuck knew how many years he _actually_ had left, and it wasn't like his lifestyle was particularly compatible, anyway – but the thought that the kid would run to someone else's arms because Mick and Lenny had left him behind _rankled_.

Barry Allen had a third of his soul, for better or worse. He wasn't just some random bloke on the street who _happened_ to have the one ability that could get Mick's other half back. And that he thought that was the case... 

"Ya think, what?" Mick snapped, his voice coming out a little too harsh. "We get a time ship 'n ferget t' come back? Ya think I won't drag ya outta Central next time yer lookin' like shit run over?" 

"I-I didn't–" Barry stammered, his eyes wide and shocked. 

"Ya _didn't_ ," Mick growled, before reaching up and shoving the finger of his hand that wasn't holding tight to the one Barry had left with his against the kid's chest. "Yer our soulmate, too. Idiot." 

"Oh," Barry said, blinking a little too rapidly for Mick's comfort. 

Given the kid's penchant for hugs, Mick figured that was his best option, so he yanked him across the empty space between them and wrapped his arms around him. 

And Barry let out a pathetic little hiccupping sound and hugged him back with a mumbled, "Sorry," against Mick's shirt. 

"Idiot," Mick muttered again, and sighed when he felt the spread of dampness at the spot where the kid had hidden his face. "Even if I was so heartless, Lenny's had a crush on ya since ya bungled his stupid diamond heist." 

"Wait, what?" Barry demanded, pulling back to give Mick a disbelieving look. His eyes were wet, but Mick's comment seemed to have stopped his tears, which had maybe been a part of why he'd said it. (Lenny would kill him for letting that slip, though he'd fooled absolutely _no one_.) "No way." 

Mick just raised his eyebrows at him in response. 

Barry covered his face with both hands. "Oh my god. I owe Iris so much money, now." 

Mick couldn't quite stop a loud laugh; as much as he wanted to hate the woman for the future she'd share with Barry, everything he'd heard about her over the past couple of weeks left him thinking he'd probably end up liking her. Which was the same thing that had happened with Lisa, as much as he hated that Lenny always put her first, so it figured. 

Barry dropped his hands to his lap with a sigh and smiled a smile that looked somehow sad. "So, when do you want to leave? And keep in mind that I need to get my suit if I'm going to be going fast enough to time travel." 

Mick frowned at that smile, but didn't ask. "How long'll it take ya ta run t' Nanda Parbat? With me." Because he needed to be there to drive his ship. 

Barry shrugged. "From here? Maybe two hours? I wasn't really timing myself the last time I did it." Mick's surprise must have shown on his face, because he quickly added, "It was in the middle of the mess with the Thawne, okay? I had other things on my mind, but I owed Oliver." 

Mick shook his head, honestly more surprised that the kid could make it that fast. Though, really, he figured going over water – at least, he was fairly certain speedsters could run on water – would be a lot faster than going over land, where things like mountains and buildings got in the way. 

The kid huffed. "Right. So, I'll run back to Central, grab my suit, then pick you up on my way back. Sound good?" 

"Sure." 

"Anything you need in Central?" the kid asked as he stood, looking towards the stolen gun sitting on the nightstand. 

"Nope. Got everythin' here," Mick promised, because most of his things had been left on the Waverider. And Gideon could synthesize him pretty much whatever he thought he might need when he got to Ananke. 

Barry nodded, and then he was gone. 

Mick sighed and got up to pack the kid's clothing back into his suitcase. And maybe clean up a few other things, so they weren't leaving the place a _complete_ mess. 

-0-

There was, quite clearly, a story on the time ship Rory had directed them to. (Ananke, he'd called it.) 

The story was found in the way the ship's version of Gideon – and hadn't _that_ been odd, finding a male version of the AI he was so used to thinking of as a female – called Rory 'Chronos', and the way he'd gone stiff and silently angry in response. It was in the way Rory had moved through the ship like it was familiar, but had flinched away from what looked suspiciously like a body part that had shattered all over over the floor next to one of the banisters that lined the ship's halls, with a splash of disturbingly familiar ice melting along the wall above it. (Barry was pretty sure he didn't want to know.) It was in the food that he found in the kitchen Rory had directed Barry to, insisting he looked hungry – he sort of was, to be fair – most of which Barry had come to think of, over the past two weeks, as being some of Rory's favorites. 

"Should I ask," he said as he returned to the bridge, cowl shoved back because he hardly needed it, "why you have a time ship?" 

Rory's shoulders went stiff again, and he snapped, "No. Sit down so we can go." 

Barry sighed and sat; he honestly hadn't expected an answer, anyway. 

Rory was completely still for a long moment, then he glanced over his shoulder at Barry, his expression guarded in a way that Barry wasn't used to seeing on him. "Travel by time drive can have some weird effects. Dunno how you'll handle it; no records o' speedsters goin' this way." 

"Sounds fun," Barry decided, and strapped himself in. Just in case. 

(He sincerely hoped he wasn't about to regret the sandwich he'd made himself and eaten on the way to the bridge.) 

Rory grunted, then turned back to the controls attached to his seat. 

Without any further warning, the world tightened, then lengthened, and Barry was hit with a very distinct sense of _not belonging_. He grabbed tight to the harness of his chair and squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of swirling green out the screen, and that seemed to help. Just a little. 

And then everything eased up, and he opened his eyes to the sight of a massive structure with debris sprinkled around what looked to be a couple of damaged sections. 

"Red?" Rory called. 

"I think," Barry said, wincing a bit at how rough his voice sounded, "that I prefer travelling via the Speed Force." 

Rory snorted but didn't argue; given that he'd said, "That weren't so bad," upon their arrival in 1960, Barry assumed he also preferred Barry's manner of time travelling. 

Rory was out of his chair and striding over to Barry before he could finish getting his harness up, and Barry blinked in confusion when he crouched down next to him, then held up three fingers. "How many?" 

"Three. Why?" 

"Jest checkin'," Rory told him, then turned and walked back to his chair. "Need ta pilot us inta place. Hangar bay'll have the most space; best ta do it there." 

"You're the boss," Barry agreed, relaxing back in his chair. 

Rory snorted and, Barry was fairly certain, said something along the lines of, "That's a new 'un." 

Barry frowned, but didn't say anything. Mostly because he wasn't completely certain what Rory had said. 

There were a couple of other ships moving around the sprawling structure, but none of them seemed to take any notice of their ship. (Or, if they did, they stayed out of their way. Which, if this was Rory's ship, Barry could sort of understand that; so far as he could tell, the man didn't even have to _try_ to exude a sense of menace. Which had maybe spooked Barry a bit, once, but he'd got to know Rory a lot better, after their holiday, and he was pretty certain the menace was unintentional. Well, sometimes.) 

When Rory determined they were in the exact spot – with Gideon quick to agree – they both got up and went down to what Rory had called the hangar bay. Which was pretty much just an open space, with one corner that looked as though it had been turned into a high-tech gym. There would be plenty of space for Barry to run in, without chancing running into anything, which was really all he could have asked for. 

Gideon directed him to the preferred position, and then Barry started to run. 

As he ran, he let his mind wander a bit, thinking back to the last time he'd seen Snart, smirking at him and Iris over that stupid mug that Iris had got Joe years before, complaining about how they didn't have any mini marshmallows. Iris had come out of that little exchange thinking Snart had the hots for him, or something, and Barry still didn't know how to feel about that. Because a part of him had always been drawn to Snart, but he loved _Iris_. And now, knowing Snart was with Rory, having watched Rory mourn him... 

Barry sucked in a breath that trembled, and then the Speed Force opened in the middle of the circle he was running. 

Neither him nor Rory had known what to expect – never mind that it was all theory, there was no way to let Snart know he'd have a chance to escape his fate – so when Snart didn't immediately jump out with his familiar smirk, Barry went to plan B: He reached into the Speed Force, putting his faith in Rory and Gideon's calculations and the web of fate that connected the three of them, grabbed the first thing he touched, and _pulled_.

Snart fell out with a shout of surprise, the Speed Force closing up as soon as he was clear, and Barry overbalanced and tumbled back onto the floor, Snart on top of him. 

Snart blinked down at him, then smirked. "Well, well. Fancy meeting you here, _Barry_." And the way he said Barry's name sent a shudder down his spine, despite the familiar edge of mocking, that reminder that he knew who the Flash was and could ruin Barry's life at any moment. 

Before Barry could come up with a response to that, Rory stormed forward and punched Snart in the face. With enough force to knock him off Barry. 

"Mick!" Barry shouted, scrambling to his feet and grabbing Rory's wrist before he could throw another punch. "What the hell?!" 

Snart, though, laughed from where he was sprawled on the floor, one hand rubbing at the side of his face that Rory had hit. 

"Fuckin' asshole," Rory snarled, but he relaxed his stance, hands uncurling from fists, and Barry was fairly certain that meant he wasn't going to go punching Snart again. 

"You would have done the same," Snart said, his smile less the familiar smirk and more something gentle. Fond. 

Barry felt distinctly like an outsider seeing something not meant for him, and he let Rory go and stepped back, out of the way. 

Rory reached down and grabbed the hand Snart held up to him, pulling him to his feet, and then they kissed, curling into each other like they were back where they belonged. 

Something rancid was climbing Barry's throat – he should have known he'd regret that sandwich – and he turned and made his escape while the pair of them were otherwise occupied. 

He eventually found himself in the hallway with the shattered whatever, wondering if he should clean it up, since it was...more than a little disturbing. Also, given Rory's reaction to it, it might be kinder if he didn't have to handle it. 

"I see you've found my hand," Snart's voice said from behind him. 

Barry jumped, just a little, and twisted to see that, yes, Snart had snuck up on him. And then he realized what he'd just said and took two quick steps back from the shattered mess on the floor. " _Your_ –"

"Long, ugly story," Snart said in that irritatingly blasé way he had. "Rip had the technology to regrow it." He wiggled the fingers of his right hand at Barry, smirking. 

Barry crossed his arms tight over his chest, not certain how he felt about...anything, really. "What do you want, Snart?" 

Snart tilted his head to the side, and his eyes were too sharp, too _knowing_ as he looked Barry over. "Right before our, hm, _fateful_ journey to the Vanishing Point, I got a visitor: You." 

"I didn't–" Barry started, before he realized what Snart's words meant. 

"Not yet," Snart said, almost like he was reading Barry mind. "But you will. And I'll get to die knowing someone will be there, looking out for Mick. Or, well–" he held motioned to himself "– _not_ die, evidently." 

"So," Barry heard himself say, "it _was_ my fault." 

Snart's eyes narrowed and he suddenly looked a lot more dangerous than Barry could remember him ever seeming. "Saving my life?" he said, voice gone low and icy. "Yes, that _was_ your fault. How dare you." 

"That's not–"

" _Don't_ complete that sentence, or I'll have to go punch him," Snart warned, and Barry swallowed down the rest of his correction; he didn't really want to be the cause behind Snart and Rory getting into a fight, honestly. 

Snart stared at him for a long, silent moment, then asked, "How drunk was he?" 

Barry shook his head. "It doesn't matter." Even though it maybe kind of did; one good thing about getting Snart back, was Barry wouldn't have to be dragging Rory out of the bottom of any more glasses or bottles. Which he appreciated. 

"I suppose not," Snart allowed. "You stayed, despite him trying to push you away." 

Barry frowned, because he wasn't certain what that had to do with anything. 

Snart took three quick steps forward, moving into Barry's personal space fast enough to leave him wondering if he hadn't maybe picked up a little of the Speed Force on his way through. And then long fingers folded around Barry's chin, far more gentle than he'd ever have expected of their owner, and Barry had one long half-second to take in the wash of color that filled his vision, before lips were pressing against his. 

Everything Barry had ever read romanticized the first kiss between soulmates, claiming there was a sort of electric zing, or that you would lose yourself in each other forever. Even Iris had gushed about her first kiss with Eddie, insisting it was the moment she'd felt most alive, that it was like the one thing in her life that she'd been living for, had made every hardship worth it. 

Given who was kissing him, Barry would have expected confetti going everywhere, or a loud horn playing a victory tune of some sort. Instead, the world seemed to slow and narrow, easing back into real time in a way that wasn't dissimilar to when he'd lost his powers, but felt far more natural, less like a weakness, and Barry found himself relaxing into the kiss, returning it without meaning to, without having time to overthink or debate the consequences. 

"Thank you, Barry," Snart eventually whispered against Barry's lips, and his name, for once, didn't sound like a taunt. Instead, it sounded fond and almost...precious. 

The world caught up to him, then, and Barry choked on what tasted depressingly like regret. "Yeah," he whispered, and tried to pull away. 

But Snart caught his head between his hands, fingers curling around the shells of his ears in what was clearly a threat to use them as handholds if Barry didn't _stay put_. His eyes, when Barry met them, still had that too knowing glint, and Barry felt uncomfortably naked. "The problem," Snart said, quiet but with a slight edge, like he maybe hated what he was saying, "with mucking about with time travel, especially Mick's experiences with it, is that you end up finding out things you never should have known. Did you know that history has you marrying Miss West?" 

"Yeah," Barry croaked. When Snart raised an eyebrow, he explained, "Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, he was from the future. He had a version of Gideon we found, and one of his favorite articles was written by Iris West-Allen." 

Snart hummed. "And how do _you_ feel about that knowledge?" 

How did Barry feel about marrying Iris? 

He'd been relieved, at one point, but also disgusted with himself, because Iris belonged with her _soulmate_ , no matter how long Barry had loved her. After Eddie's death, it had felt like an ugly reminder that Iris had never been meant to marry her soulmate; what should have felt like a promise of their happy future – or as happy as they could be, when Barry was destined to vanish in less than a decade – had felt like yet more proof that Eddie's death had been _Barry's fault_.

Now, though... 

Iris being willing to try, Barry finally finding his soulmate – soulmate _s_ – he felt... He wasn't certain. It wasn't like Snart and Rory had room for him, no matter what Rory had said – no matter how comfortable kissing Snart had felt – so he supposed it was nice to know he could still have _one_ happy ending. 

Almost like he'd seen Barry reaching his conclusion – and didn't approve, judging from his tone – Snart snapped, "Here's the thing: I fucked up." His eyes slid to the side, like maybe saying that was a little too honest, and Barry caught himself holding his breath as Snart took a breath and met his eyes again, something raw in them that made Barry's chest ache. "I fucked up," he said again, a little bit quieter, "and Mick paid the price. Not the first time, given, but this time..." 

Snart stepped back, letting Barry go, and he looked down at the shattered remains of what was apparently his hand. "The Time Masters got him, Mick, tried their damnedest to break him, to turn him against me. Us. The Legends." His mouth quirked at the last, looking somehow bitter and mocking all at once. "They almost managed it." 

Barry felt a chill go down his spine; the heavy shadows that crossed Rory's face sometimes, his missing scars, him owning a ship where he was called a different name, the shattered remains of Snart's hand... He'd been seeing the signs all along, but he hadn't realized what it meant. "He tried to kill you," he guessed. 

"No," Snart corrected, smiling a tired smile. "He threatened to kill Lisa." 

Lisa Snart, the one person Snart probably held more dear than anyone else. Except maybe Rory. 

The rage that washed through Barry reminded him so very much of the rage he'd felt towards Zoom after watching him kill Dad, he staggered under the weight of it. 

He wanted the Time Masters _dead_.

He forced himself to breathe, to remember that, from what Rory had said the first time Barry'd got him to talk about Snart's death, that explosion had taken out the Time Masters. (Or the Time Pigs, Rory always called them.) They _were_ dead, couldn't hurt either of his soulmates again. Both of whom had made it out alive, thanks to fate and some judicious misuse of the Speed Force's time travelling capabilities. 

"Impressive blood lust," Snart drawled. 

"Shut up," Barry snapped, crossing his arms tight over his chest. "It's been a shitty year." 

Snart was quiet for a moment, then he said, sounding so honest it actually hurt a little bit to hear, "Mick told me about Doc Allen. I'm sorry." 

"Yeah," Barry whispered, willing himself not to cry at the reminder of his loss. It was easier, after two weeks away from Central, but it still ached, and Barry knew, from experience, that it always would. 

Snart kept quiet for long enough that Barry managed to mostly get his emotions back under control, then he quietly said, "I can't put Mick back together alone." 

"What makes you think I'll be any help?" Barry had to ask; he was pretty sure he was enough of a mess, himself, that he'd do as much harm as good. 

Snart caught his eyes, the certainty in his gaze holding Barry fast. "You already have been. And not just because you dragged me away from that explosion," he added, before Barry could think it. "I know how he self-destructs." 

Barry winced at that, because Snart _would_ put it that way. 

"So," Snart said, taking a step forward, back into Barry's space, "since we have a _time ship_ , you're going to stay, and you're going to help me, for as long as I say." 

"The hell–!" Barry started, bristling at the implication that he was going to dance to Snart's tune. 

"And _you_ ," Snart interrupted, keeping his voice at a perfectly reasonable indoors volume, but Barry still somehow felt like he'd just been shouted down, "will have a chance to grieve in peace, without any cities to rebuild or metas to take on without a plan or backup." 

Barry looked away, hating that Snart had apparently figured out his own self-destructive tendencies; evidently, he'd finally found someone who wouldn't let him run himself to exhaustion. 

"And both of you," Snart continued in a tone that somehow sounded both reasonable and conceited, "will figure out that I don't give a damn about whatever bullshit future a computer program has concocted; I keep what's mine." 

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Barry demanded, though he suspected he already knew. 

"Miss West will simply have to find another husband," Snart said. And then he _smirked_.

"Now I know why Mick punched you," Barry muttered, because he was definitely feeling the urge. 

Snart laughed, and it sounded somehow fragile to Barry. And then he reached up and cupped Barry's cheek, and Barry couldn't really stop the way he leant into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed. "Tell me you want to leave, and I'll let you," Snart said, voice quiet and pained. "We'll stay out of Central, let you have your little romance with Miss West. But if you stay, _Barry_ , you will _never_ get rid of us." 

And then Snart pulled away, and Barry opened his eyes in time to watch him walk away, turning a corner and vanishing from sight. 

"Shit," Barry whispered, drooping back against the handrail behind him. 

He'd been all set to just _leave_ , settle in with Iris like future records seemed to think he was going to do. (Probably take it slow; he wasn't certain he felt any more ready to start a relationship with her, now, than he had before he'd run into Rory. Albeit for slightly different reasons.) Maybe see Rory and Snart once every other year, probably have to stop them from stealing something priceless, possibly get dragged off to holiday on a beach, like Rory'd threatened. Keep a comet's orbit. 

Trust Snart to throw a wrench in his plans. 

So he had to pick between the love of his life and the other two thirds of his soul. 

He looked down at his gloved hand, the play of the ship's lights over the red that, until recently, he never thought he'd see, and he knew what Iris would say. What she'd _already_ said, even without knowing whose arms she was sending Barry towards. She honestly and truly believed people belonged with their soulmates, and she'd never forgive Barry if he turned his back on his. 

(Honestly, Barry wasn't certain he'd forgive _himself_.)

Iris had been _so certain_ that Barry would come to love Rory, and Barry could admit, at least to himself, that she was probably right. And he already knew he had...something with Snart. Obsession or a mutual enjoyment of pushing each other's buttons. 

Barry choked out a laugh and covered his face with his hands, because he'd known what his choice would be all along. Had probably decided long before Iris had told him he'd come to love Rory. 

No, _Mick_ ; there was no reason to continue the pretense of distance between them, was there? Same with Snart. Lenny. 

_God_ it felt weird to think of them by their first names. But also _not_.

_Soulmates_.

It didn't take him long to find them, even going at a normal speed, but, then, they clearly weren't hiding; Sn– Lenny was slouched in one of the bridge chairs, making it look somehow _comfortable_ , while Mick was scrolling through something on one of the consoles set apart from the chairs. 

"Barry," Lenny drawled, shooting him a lazy smirk. "So good of you to join us." 

Barry suspected he was going to spend a lot of time wanting to punch that particular smirk off of Lenny's face. Which, given, was hardly something new; Snart – _Lenny_ – could drive a saint to violence. 

Rather than chancing violence by letting himself be baited by Lenny, Barry walked over to Mick. Who, he saw when he got close enough, was looking at marriage records. _Barry and Iris'_ marriage records. 

The bottom dropped out of Barry's stomach, and he almost didn't recognize his own voice when he snapped, "Gideon, shut it off." 

The console went black. 

"What the fuck?" Mick snarled, pounding his fist on the console, then glaring up at the ceiling. "Since when've ya listened t' sum'un other'n me?" 

"Creator trumps captain," Barry informed him flatly, and the wide-eyed stare from Mick and the surprised noise from Lenny was actually kind of satisfying. "Learned that trick against the Reverse-Flash." 

"Excellent use of your power over future technology," Lenny said. 

Barry rolled his eyes and Mick's mouth twitched, like he was maybe debating a smile. Which was familiar and comforting, and Barry sort of hated that he was about to ruin it. But still, he _had_ to know: "Mick," he said, forcing his voice to remain even, "do you _want_ me to marry Iris? Shut up, Snart," he added, hopefully preempting any commentary from the smartass peanut gallery. 

Mick went tense and hunched, and Barry half expected him to reach up and rub at his chest, because that body language usually meant he was thinking about Lenny. But he didn't, instead choosing to look away, towards the blank console. "I know that history–"

"We _literally_ just rewrote history," Barry pointed out, motioning towards where Lenny was being suspiciously silent in his chair. "Anyway, weren't you the one who said something about that explosion stopping the pigs who were taking away the will of time?" 

Mick jerked and turned a startled stare on Barry. "That's different," he said, but he didn't sound like he believed his own words. 

"Mick," Barry said quietly, "what do _you_ want?" Because he wasn't going to stick around if Mick didn't want him there. No matter what Iris thought about the inevitability of soulmates, or how certain Lenny seemed to be that Barry would be wanted by both him and Mick. 

"No," Mick said, sounding a little like it was a struggle to get the words out. "I dun want ya marryin' her." 

"Then I'll stay." 

"Didn't I say?" Lenny said in an irritatingly superior tone. 

"Shut up, Lenny," Mick ordered, before giving Barry an uncertain look that made his chest ache. "Ya sure?" 

Barry swallowed and somehow managed a careless shrug. "I mean, I need to get back to Central eventually, because I can't just leave without warning–"

"Yes, let's avoid that," Lenny said with a world of meaning in his voice. 

"We've been ta few futures where you weren't," Mick explained, clearly reading Barry's curiosity. And then he and Lenny shared a look that seemed to speak volumes, though Barry lacked the translation guide, or whatever. 

"I...honestly don't know how to explain this to my friends," Barry added. He was pretty sure Cisco and Caitlin would be okay with it – they at least already knew he had a bad habit of trusting Lenny when he probably shouldn't, and Cisco had that weird sort of wish-I-could-date-you thing with Lisa – and probably Felicity. And Iris would be delighted, once she got past the criminals bit. But Joe and Oliver would be... 

Well. Barry wondered how long he could keep who his soulmates were from certain people who were more likely to shoot first. Maybe he could ask Ray or Sara to help him break the news to Oliver? They'd at least travelled with the pair long enough to figure out they weren't _completely_ irredeemable. And Iris would help with Joe. Probably. 

Lenny, of course, let out a loud, mean laugh. "This is going to be _fun_."

"I should let Oliver shoot you," Barry threatened. 

"Probably," Mick muttered. 

Lenny snorted and rose from the chair in what looked to be a practiced, but no less attractive, languid stretch. "Queen will keep. For the moment, I've just come from almost being blown up, so I'm going to take a shower and find the bed. Which, hm, apparently there's only one of." He shot Mick a pointed look, then turned and strode from the bridge. 

"Ananke were only meant ta have one long-term crew," Mick muttered, looking at one of the consoles instead of at Barry. "Bed's big 'nough fer three, but I c'n get Gideon t' make a cot 'r sum'thin', if ya'd ruther." 

"How many times have we fallen asleep in the same bed?" Barry had to ask, because he'd taken to either pulling Mick down to sleep in his bed, or crawling over to his bed to sleep there after one of his nightmares. Because there was something about being in the same bed that had made it possible for him to get back to sleep, when usually he'd have been awake for the rest of the night. 

"That's different," Mick muttered. 

"Oh for–" Barry huffed, then took a page out of Lenny's rule book – probably not something he should do too often – and stepped into Mick's personal space, leaning up to kiss him. 

As soothing as Lenny's kiss had been, Mick's _wasn't_ , especially once he'd stopped standing stiff in shock and started kissing Barry back, one hand catching in his hair and pulling. It felt a little like running into a burning building; so very hot and with an edge of danger, but _knowing_ he would make it through safe. 

"Shoulda done that sooner," Mick gasped against his mouth, and Barry laughed and kissed him again, because they'd probably have avoided a lot of angst if they'd got some things out of the way before saving Lenny. 

But, then again, maybe they wouldn't have. 

He didn't suppose it really mattered, in the end. 

_"Mr Snart would like me to remind you both that he's waiting,"_ Gideon informed them. 

Mick snorted and Barry laughed and they turned to go find their absent third before he resorted to something more obnoxious than having Gideon pass messages.

.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the time I was writing the scene where Mick realized he could save Len, I decided I needed to write this scene. (Originally, Len was going to jump through the Speed Force on his own, because he knew there was a chance he'd get an eleventh hour rescue. But I ended up deciding Barry needed to grab him because, well, the Speed Force is a giant brat.)
> 
> FYI, this is, like...SUPER short. Because it's just a scene.

Len had long ago developed a sixth sense that told him when he was being followed, which had served him well over the years. He wasn't in the habit of distrusting it, not even in the middle of what should have been an empty wood, and given the dangerous man he was currently helping to hunt, he felt that drawing and switching on his cold gun as he turned was only wise. 

The man he found standing behind him was one of the last people he'd have expected, but he didn't let it show, instead snapping out a, "Hello, _Flash_."

Barry Allen's mouth quirked with a smile that looked almost fond. "Snart," he said. And then he pulled off one of his gloves and held out his hand. 

Len froze, staring at the offered hand. It was hardly the first time the Flash had made overtures of camaraderie over the past year and a half or so of their association, but to make a point of removing his glove... 

Len suspected he knew exactly what would happen if he took Barry's hand, and he couldn't help but hesitate. Because Mick was trapped in a glass box on the ship behind him, mad with rage and his mind all a scramble; would it be fair to properly meet the third of their soul without him? Especially when their third was someone who Len was already far too enamored of; if they hadn't been on opposite sides of the law, he might have even propositioned him over a year ago, with Mick's okay. (Although, if they were on the same side of the law, Len probably wouldn't get to watch him moving in that ridiculously tight suit, _certainly_ wouldn't _have_ to keep his eyes on him while out on the field. Which would be a pity.) 

Barry, who had always struck Len as being far too rushed about everything, was still holding his hand out, patient while Len debated over whether or not to remove his own glove and take his hand. 

That, in the end, was what decided Len – patience suggested Barry had come here just to tell Len they were soulmates, which meant he was very likely from the future, which meant Len had to have given in at some point, probably; time travel was far too messy and complicated, some days – and he shoved his gun away then pulled off his glove and clasped Barry's hand in return. 

Barry's expression didn't change, even as Len had to just _breathe_ for a moment, so completely blown away by the wash of colors that changed the wood around them into something far too beautiful for mere words. 

"I'll find Mick," Barry said, his voice quiet and familiar in a way that Len wasn't used to from him; definitely from the future. "After Savage is dead." 

Relief washed over Len, because that promised that Mick would be okay, that he would be himself again, eventually. That whatever the Time Masters had done to him wasn't irreversible. And that, one day, he and Barry would see all of the colors, too. 

And then he realized what Barry _hadn't_ said, and had to ask, "Not me, Scarlet?" 

Barry shook his head. "I guess that part's up to you." Then he withdrew his hand and pulled his glove back on. "Goodbye, Lenny." 

He used the name that only Mick and Lisa used for him; Barry had used it once before, and Len hadn't realized until he was safely ensconced behind bars in Iron Heights, how odd it had seemed that he hadn't been bothered when the Flash had used it. At least now he knew _why_.

"Barry," he murmured in return. 

Barry flashed him a smile, wide and far less guarded than Len had ever seen from him, then he pulled up his hood and vanished with a flash of yellow lightning. 

Len stared after him for a moment, flexing the fingers of his ungloved hand. And then, allowing himself a small, fond smile, he pulled his glove back on and turned to return to Waverider, full of hope for a future where he'd have both of his soulmates, safe and sane. 

It would be a hope worth dying for.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIN


End file.
